Things starting to look up for Travel Nursing, finally!

If you are like most Travel Nurses, you couldn’t have helped but notice that assignments dried up quite a bit last year. In a profession that basically lives or dies based on the nursing shortage, you would have thought that there were more than enough local Nurses to go around last year. There was in fact a surge in the number of nurses available for local work, but it wasn’t caused by new nurses coming out of school exceeding more experienced nurses getting out of the profession. It was caused by experienced nurses that had left the profession getting back in. The economy forced many Nurses who had stepped away from the bedside, to step back up in order to replace the income lost to layoffs and downsizing. Many were forced to replace their spouses incomes.

Another factor in the loss of assignments was the fact that hospitals were tightening their belts as well. Working understaffed as opposed to filling positions with Travelers, or enticing Travelers to take seasonal contracts at their facilities rather than travel positions.

As the economy starts to improve, many Travel Staffing Companies are offering hope, if not to Travel Nurses then certainly to their stock holders. While the staffing company may be telling you things are bleak (which equates to ‘I need you to take less money’), they’re telling their investors that things are looking up, finally.

Robert J. Adamson, chairman and chief executive officer at Medical Staffing Networks stated “we are beginning to see some very early-stage positive trends. We have experienced an increase in demand in October, up from September levels, seemingly due to the flu pandemic.” He was talking about their quarterly results for the 3 month period ending Sept. of 2009.

Peter Dameris, the CEO and President at On Assignment stated in his Q3 2009 Earnings Call Transcript “In the nursing division, we continue to see a severe constraint in purchasing from hospitals. However we still believe that the reduction and demand in our Nurse Travel group is not due to loss of market share but rather hospitals’ current mindset to conserve cash until the credit crisis eases, and a temporary flood of nurses available for full-time employment recedes.”

Cross Country President and CEO Joseph A. Boshart said in a news release he noticed improvement in contract bookings in the nurse staffing business in the second quarter, and that is continuing. However, it can take several months for new contracts to show financial benefit on the company’s books, he noted. His statements were also in response to the companies profits falling heavily for the quarter.

All in all, 2009 will prove to be a bad year for Travel Nursing. I know of many travel nurses who stopped traveling and opted for the security of a full time position close to home, afraid to get caught without a assignment in an economic downturn. What that means to those of us who continue to travel is that as things do pick up, which they are doing as we speak, there are less Travel Nurses available to fill those positions. It’s all about supply and demand, we suffer when the assignments are few and far between and we will benefit as the positions blossom with fewer nurses available to fill them.