You may have heard there’s a nationwide shortage of nurses, but is it simply a matter of not having enough working nurses to fill the jobs? Let’s look at another factor that’s in play, and how it affects Paychecks, especially in Washington State!
Here are Five Fast Facts about our nursing shortage:
- 😫What’s causing it? - It’s been building for a while, but it’s a lot worse because of COVID-19 burnout! Plus, many nurses can make tons of cash by working as travel nurses instead of just staying in one place long-term.
- 👩🏫But wait, there’s more! Another problem is the even bigger shortage of nurse educators. Washington is 6.8% short of the needed educators in colleges across the state. That’s like Danny DeVito-level short!
- 💸Follow the money - The average salary for nurse educators in 2020 was $84k, only slightly higher than the average RN salary of $80k even though they have an (often expensive) advanced degree and more experience. Disincentive much??
- 📈Getting better…kinda - Nationally, salaries for nurse educators increased 1.1% in 2020…but RNs saw a 3.3% increase. This sure helps explain the shortage of teachers!
- 👩⚕️❤️Fixing it here at home - Fortunately for the Evergreen State, our leaders saw this coming a couple years ago and invested $40 million in better nurse educator salaries and other retention programs.
🔥Bottom line: Because of those previous actions, things are getting better. Nursing school faculty positions are filling faster and nursing programs are growing again. More money is being made available to facilitate each step of the process. This is good for everyone’s Paychecks! And our health, too, of course.
How is this impacting you?
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