I'm living in Edmonton currently and the Edmonton Journal had an interesting article in it today- Albertans coming to NS for work
Nurses on slow track of 'roller-coaster'
Up-and-down demand for new grads bottoms out again in Alberta after health-care cuts
In June, Angela Espejo will pack her bags and head east to Halifax.
The new University of Alberta nursing graduate has found a job there with the Capital District Health Authority, paying between $55,000 and $65,000 a year, depending on shift differential and overtime.
There will be a new city to explore, one as different from her native Fort McMurray as chalk is from cheese. But Espejo, 24, is eager to make a new beginning there because she can follow her dream of being a nurse.
"For me it combines science with interacting with people," she says. "That is what drew me to nursing in the first place."
She does have one regret, however. Like most members of her graduating class, she couldn't find a job in her home province. The University of Alberta's nursing school in Edmonton is the largest in Canada; this year it will graduate almost 700 nurses. But provincial cutbacks to health-care funding in the wave of a global recession have meant there will be no new full-time nursing positions available in Alberta this year.
"The challenge for graduates this year is finding jobs," says Anita Molzahn, dean of the faculty of nursing at the U of A. "But people like me who have been in the profession for a long time have probably seen this rise-and-fall cycle at least three times during our careers.
"We also know it will happen again. I have to add that high school students entering nursing courses this fall will have better luck. They will probably emerge with degrees during a hiring spree."
That roller-coaster ride in the job market is just something nurses have to put up with, says Kaaren Neufeld, president of the Canadian Nurses Association. This year -- unlike the bleak period of health-care cutbacks in the 1990s -- it doesn't mean new graduates won't find full-time jobs.
Nova Scotia is hiring, and there are plenty of jobs in rural, remote and northern communities. In major centres, however, they might have to settle for part-time work at multiple hospitals and clinics.
"The nature of the profession right now is that new graduates usually have to relocate to find full-time work," she says. Yet, she says, "nursing holds an absolutely great future for young people."
Canada, like most countries, has a chronic shortage of nurses, and the situation is likely to get worse without government intervention.
The CNA estimates Canada currently has a shortfall of about 20,000 full-time nurses to meet existing need; that will grow to 30,000 by 2016 and to 50,000 by 2022 if current trends continue.
But those entering the profession today are certain of a rewarding career -- if they can live with that roller-coaster ride, Neufeld says.
"Most young people just have no idea of the breadth and scope of opportunity a nursing career offers. They still base their views on a narrow and outdated stereotype."
"Today they can be educators, managers, administrators, specialists, in a huge range of medical and health-care areas."
Nursing is about lifelong learning and acquiring new skills, says Cynthia Baker, executive director of the Canadian School of Nursing Schools, which represents the 91 institutions across Canada that grant nursing degrees.
She cites 2008 statistics that showed 1,059 nurses completed PhDs or master's degrees that year versus just 823 in 2004. In 2008, 9,113 nurses completed undergraduate degrees, compared with 5,000 in 2004.
"And we know the numbers are well up from 2008," she says. "In fact, one of the things we find is that in good economic times not only do numbers of young people applying for nursing schools increase, but the quality of those applicants rises."
And these are good times, say heads of nursing schools across the country. With the recession apparently behind us, applications to nursing schools outnumber seats available by at least four to one.
What new entrants in the job market can expect on graduation are reasonable salaries and a huge variety in careers.
Salaries are set by provincial contract and in most provinces start well above $52,000, plus shift differential and overtime. Clinical-nurse specialists can expect salaries just under $100,000 a year.
Espejo has no idea yet what job she will be doing in Halifax or where her career might lead.
"The only thing I know for sure is wherever my career heads I will always be a nurse. This is what I love."
Prev
Linear Mode
