Aid to Fill Nursing Jobs in New Jersey

Due to the national recession, the job markets in many industries continues to shrink at an alarming rate. While this means that competition is higher for most positions, nursing jobs and other healthcare occupations remain difficult to hire fill because of a shortage of properly trained workers. Many states are struggling to train enough nurses to fill current staff vacancies due to a lack of money for training. Hoping to fix this problem before the lack of professionals in this area of employment hurts patient care, the state of New Jersey recently announced the beginning of a $22 million initiative.

According to a recent press release the plan created by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce to alleviate the problem was approved during a state Senate’s Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee hearing. The money allocated for this will be go towards increasing the number of nursing jobs for teachers who will train new workers for unfilled and future RN positions.

As part of this initiative a Faculty Preparation Program has been created. Through this, many nursing schools across the state will receive grants towards training new nurses. On top of this 46 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation New Jersey Nursing Scholars will receive support. These individual are currently studying to become faculty members. Each person receiving this aid has committed to teaching in New Jersey for three years after they finish their current program.

"There is a real danger that the short-term easing of the nursing shortage caused by the recession will create the false impression that we've found a solution to the more serious nursing shortage that lies ahead," said Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in the recent press release. "We have not. Layoffs and older nurses staying in or returning to the workforce postpone, but do not fix, the problem. Unless we act now, New Jersey and the rest of this nation are heading for a nursing catastrophe that will affect us all. We ignore it at our peril. The quality of health care for patients will suffer if we don't address it."

Lavizzo-Mourey’s concerns are fact based. According to recent report from the New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing at Rutgers, the “average” age for a RN in the state is 50 years old. The report also stated that 54.4 percent of registered nurses in the state are between the ages of 46 and 60, which means that almost a third of the individuals holding these positions will reach the age of retirement in the next decade.

Since many schools lack the number of faculty members to properly train new RNs, students are being turned away. According to the New Jersey Collaborating Center for Nursing there are 567 full-time nurse faculty in the state, with the average age of a worker being 55. Out of these individuals, the center excepts 74 of them to retire within the next five years.

By increasing the funding to train and hire new faculty members, the schools that limit the number of students they take it will be able to accept more individuals. This means that there will be more available workers to fill healthcare jobs across the state of New Jersey.