Hiring Nursing Trends in the Middle of Global Crisis

The transition and the hiring trends for nurses has changed over the past few years and the road to overseas deployment has become a challenge and more difficult due to the global financial crisis we experience today. The sudden decreased on the number of job orders from different countries has been greatly affected by this recession we felt. The United States was closed and there is no working visa made available starting around the year 2005 to 2006 with an ongoing retrogression that was given no proper resolution. On the other hand, countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom may have opened their doors for the aspiring nurses abroad but their high standard made it difficult to qualify Filipino nurses. They are even requiring to have some international experience first as means to qualify nurses and the process was never made easy due to some circumstances from the different recruitment agencies when they collect higher amount of payments only for the processing fees and placement fees which they illegally implement in the country.

Furthermore, nursing, indeed, has become a bargain not only to most of the hospital in the country but even for overseas deployment which is far from the hiring trends for nurses we had two or three years ago. The sudden increased of the nursing population aside from the ongoing financial crisis and retrogression is the main factor or probable cause based on my observation. Cheaper salary is now being offered especially in Middle East Countries, the only country open for nurses today that provides a large number of job orders and I have observed that there are some Filipino Nurses grabbed it even at lower rates. On their point of view, they cannot earn such amount of money here as a nurse in the country, so why not grab it, and they only consider it as most likely a stepping stone because not only they can receive a much higher salary compare to the offered salary in our country but the thought of gaining the so called “international experience” is a plus factor.

The fast changing nursing trends and hiring process for professionals has become a foreseeable crisis and can be seen as a threat for overseas Filipino workers in two years time. The retrogression may take sometime to be resolve and there is a great possibility for nurses being stuck in the country, some may take a different path which is far from their field just to compensate the days they are not able to practice the profession. Moreover, the competition among nurses was even more intensified especially in national application both in Manila and provincial area. Most of the hospitals today prefer to hire nurses with titles on their names like Suma cum laude, Magna, cum laude and the like. And so it makes it even much harder for the large population of nurses to gain an experience in the country that some grab the opportunity in Middle East Countries who are mostly in need of nurses.

The Philippine government on the other hand has opened its way to increase their manpower resources in the community areas by launching once again the Nurses to the Barrios, which in return can be a big help for registered nurses to gain an experience. The deployment is a part of the Nurses Assigned To Rural Service to be exact which is an emergency employment-cum-training program for nurses. This is implemented basically to address the growing number of registered nurses in the country who have been unemployed since passing the local board examination and lack experience to work abroad. This is also a way to reach the people from the rural areas who mostly needs medical or health care assistance and needs proper health education on health promotion and illness prevention; thus, nurses being deployed here are called the “wellness warriors.”

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