According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are many cities throughout this nation where the only regularly occurring employment growth is in the healthcare industry. While others are struggling to find work, professionals in this sector continue to have options. For many in healthcare, the big question is which job search site to use.
A new Web site, HealthcareJobsOnDisplay.com, hopes to answer this question. Launched on the 13th of this month, the creators of this site put almost a year into its preparation, research, design, development, programming and testing.
Since many studies have found that the average Internet user is more drawn to visual images than they are words by themselves, HealthcareJobsOnDisplay.com has decided to market job listings as graphic ads. According to a recent press release, the company believes this benefits employers in two different ways. Not only are they able to advertise their available jobs, but they also have the chance to make their personal brand visible.
These highly visible ads make searching for a healthcare job easier. More information is available in a format that is easily processed by the human eyes, which means that the days of having to squint at small print on a computer screen are over.
"Our search function is the most important piece of the puzzle and we wanted to be different, not like every other job board out there, so we made sure that Branded, Creative, Display ads populate from the 1st search and it's all right there initially so employers have a chance to stand out, right out of the box. Employers and candidates will notice a difference right away from the very 1st search," said Ron Feldstein, founder and president of HealthcareJobsOnDisplay.com, in the recent press release. "We strived to create a unique, truly functional website and I we've done it."
Feldstein went on to say that with so many job boards competing online, it is important for a newcomer to find their niche and remain unique.
"To my knowledge there are no websites out there providing this kind of display ad search capability, and this level of customer service/design services. We are creating each ad individually for every client, which involves copywriting, design, and coordination. Sure it's a lot of work, but our clients and employers have already seen the difference in our approach and they appreciate the effort," said Feldstein.
Although the company has a creative team in place to handle designing ads, employers are able to provide their own cream ready advertisements.
In order to drum up interest in the Web site, HealthcareJobsOnDisplay will give the 1st, 100th, 250th, 500th, 1100th, 1250th, 1500th, 21ooth, 2250th and 2500th job seekers who upload their resumes a $50 gift card. The 1000th, 2000th and 3000th resumes posted will receive a $100 gift card.
Currently, HealthcareJobsOnDispaly handles only employment advertisements for positions located on the East Coast.
One company is planning to eliminate almost 200 healthcare jobs across four states. Click here to see more healthcare jobs. AMN Healthcare recently announced that it plans to eliminate 190 healthcare positions in California and three other unnamed states. About 40 workers will lost their jobs in San Diego, where the company is based. Some employees will be offered positions in other parts of the company and some will receive severance packages.
The company is eliminating positions as part of its plan to restructure its travel nurse staffing division, according to an article by the San Diego Union-Tribune. Although the healthcare industry is often one considered to be recession-proof, many hospitals across the country are reducing their number of traveling nurses to help save costs.
AMN supplies traveling nurses, traveling doctors and other temporary healthcare workers to hospitals, clinics and physician practices. The company has acquired several smaller competitors throughout the years.
AMN has announced that two of those brands, RN Demand and Preferred Healthcare Staffing, will be phased out. However, the company will continue to recruit temporary nurses through American Mobile Healthcare, NursesRX, NurseChoice, O'Grady Peyton International and Medical Express.
AMN also plans to close its office in Huntersville, N.C. as of April and move its NursesRX recruiting services to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
San Diego's education and health services industry employed 134,600 workers during December 2008, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is up from 134,200 workers during November 2008 and a 2.4 percent increase from last year.
California's education and health services industry as a whole employed 1,738,200 workers during December 2008, up from 1,735,900 workers during November 2008 and a 3.1 percent increase from last year.
Many industries throughout the country are suffering, such as finance, construction and manufacturing. Because of this, employers are laying off workers in order to keep their profits intact. One sector that seems to be immune to these issues is the healthcare industry. This sector has many employment opportunities that often over look, such as healthcare sales jobs.
Often called medical sales representatives, or reps, individuals with this healthcare job work on the behalf of pharmaceutical companies to sell much needed equipment or medicine to professionals in the field. They are responsible for getting the products of the company that they work for out to the people who need them most.
Medical sales representatives usually have a general geographical location that they sell with in. They also usually specialize in on particular product or in a specific medical area. As part of this, they often make presentations or organize events for healthcare professionals so that they can learn more about the products they offer.
Because of the amount of time these individuals spend face-to-face with doctors and nurses, it is important that they have good interpersonal skills. Being a good public speaker also comes in very handy, as a working knowledge of medical concepts.
In order to be successful in this field, an individual would need to be good at managing time, making their own schedule and, for some, budgeting the money used to fund a conference. Other responsibilities include keeping up to date with changes in the industry, developing sales strategies and creating and maintaining working relationships with medical professionals.
According to CNNmoney.com's Salary Wizard, the median salary in this field is $59,730, but some make more than $200,000 a year. Their pay is often accompanied by large bonuses. Aside from normal benefits, individuals with healthcare sales jobs often get expense accounts, company vehicles, and a variety of other incentives.
100 Lost Healthcare Jobs Nothing to Be Concerned About
Despite losing 100 healthcare jobs in hospitals, the Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown metropolitan area of New York still had industry job growth in August, according to state Department of Labor's labor market analyst John Nelson.
Over the last year, the area has gained 500 jobs in the industry, when hospitals are excluded. Nelson believes that the 100 positions cut at local hospitals was "just a blip."
"You have to keep in mind that these surveys are sample-based estimates, so that 100 is not really a real factor," said Nelson. "You probably won’t find a company that laid off 100 people. There could be minor cutbacks, but nothing big."
The Times Herald-Record checked this by calling area hospitals to find out how many healthcare jobs they had cut, but all of those that returned the calls said that they did not layoff any employees during August. Rob Lee, a spokesman for the Orange Regional Medical Center, told reporters that the facility he represents is in the process of recruiting for 125 vacant positions.
"Hospitals across the nation are struggling, and the climate in New York state is particularly challenging," said Judi Stokes, who is a spokesperson for St. Luke's. "New York state hospitals' operating margin are the second worst in the nation. While volatility in the economy certainly plays a role regarding increased costs for operations - such as utilities and supplies - the challenges are far greater and longer term."
According to Lee, the struggling economy could actually be partially to blame for the rising rates of illness. Stress can induce many health problems, but he says that he is not aware of the hospital he represents having an increased problem in patients not paying their bills.
Limited acceptance into nursing school and a group of RNs nearing retirement age has caused serve issues for employers. Since finding enough professionals to fill many healthcare jobs has become a serious problem, many hospital administrators are now focusing even harder on retention than ever before.
According to the Kansas City Star, the state is expected to have a supply of nurses that has decline by 2.3 percent in 2020. At the same time, the demand is expected to increase by 25.6 percent, making it extremely important for employers to hold on to ever nurse that they can. The newspaper also found that 13 percent of nurses make the decision to leave their career each year. This means that more than 9 percent of the positions for this healthcare job continue to be unfilled.
In an effort to encourage nurses to stick with the career and battle burnout, many employers are now offering better benefits, higher salaries and more training.
Susan Lacey, who is the director of nursing work force and systems analysis at Children's Mercy Hospital, told the newspaper that a new center at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Nursing plans to address the problem in a variety of different ways over the course of the next two years.
The center plans to conduct a comprehensive survey of all of the local hospitals and clinics in order to find out which facilities have issues that need to be improved in order to keep nurses around. It also plans to create a Clinical Scene Investigator (CSI) Academy in order to provide education and technical support to those in the profession. They will also share the results of the survey and CSI Academy at an up-coming conference devoted to nursing work-force innovation.
"We believe the center will serve as a national model for strategic innovation in health-care transformation," Lacey told the newspaper. "It truly is one of a kind. We believe we can meet the demands with the available resources if we help to improve the environment in which nurses are working."
The unstable economy has caused many employers throughout a variety of different industries to layoff many workers. Rising gas prices, falling real estate sales and the national credit crisis are all working against business owners and making it more difficult to turn a profit. Lowering the amount spent on paying employee wages is one way that many companies are staying in the staying in the black.
Despite these wide spread problems in the job market, healthcare jobs continue to offer employers security. While the many industries throughout the country are doing away with jobs, healthcare employment opportunities continue to increase.
"If you had a new employer coming to Greenville that was bringing on board 550 new employees, it would be a big deal," said Doug Dorman, GHS' Vice President of Human Resources.
According to Dorman, these new healthcare jobs are in addition to the 450 new positions that were just created. This means a total of 800 new jobs for everyone from nurse and doctors to clerical workers and all other employees used to staff the five campuses.
Over the last year, GHS has opened two new hospitals; one at its Greer campus and one at Patewood. With the addition of the new jobs, GHS, which is the region's largest employer, would have a total workforce of around 9,300.
This staff increase will end up costing patients more. Patient's rooms will soon be going from $740 a night to $785.
"We had the same costs that you have at home," said Susan Bichel, GHS Vice President of Financial Services. "We have utility costs going up--other costs--all of our expenses are increasing as well."
Although employers in many industries across the country have been decreasing the number of individuals they employee, healthcare jobs continue to plentiful. The economic uncertainty that has been the cause of such downsizing has yet to effect the medical field. The large number of jobs being posted online in this industry is further proof that employment in healthcare will continue to offer job security that is scarce in today's market.
Industry specific job search site HealthcareCrossing posted over 28,000 new positions in one week during the month of July. This record breaking number of job announcements happened despite several layoffs at various hospitals and medical centers in June.
Many of these layoffs were the result of internal problems and efforts to increase profits. Experts do not believe that they reflected greater issues in the industry, which remains relatively steady.
"The recession has hit the recruiters pretty hard in the first quarter," said HealthcareCrossing CEO A. Harrison Barnes. "But HealthcareCrossing has been seeing a record growth in the number of jobs, and is really doing a superb job."
As proof of the site's success Barnes cited the fact that approximately 217,000 active jobs are currently available on the website's database. This is a 256 percent increase from January when HealthcareCrossing had only 84,758 positions.
According to the number of positions being posted on the site the careers with the highest demand are:
One of the factors that makes HealthcareCrossing different from other job search sites is the fact that it weeds out spam and positions that are not industry specific. The company believes that this increases the efficiency of its users job search efforts.
Where as many job search sites only list positions that employers have paid to post, HealthcareCrossing tries to locate all healthcare job announcements listed on the Internet and offer them in one convenient location.
Jobs in health care are in high demand across the country and they will continue to be for the foreseeable future. The shortage of health care staff in hospitals and doctor’s offices is serious in many parts of the country.
But health care jobs today are different than they have been in the recent past. The days of doctors and nurses who only worked in hospitals or physician’s offices are gone. The opportunities in health care today are vastly different and there are a broad array of opportunities in many different areas.
According to the U. S. Department of Labor, there will be a 30% increase in the number of health care jobs required by the year 2014. That means we will see a need for more than 4,000,000 new health care jobs! Those jobs won’t just be filled in hospitals and doctor’s offices. There is a growing need for health care workers in insurance companies, disease management companies, call centers, 24/7 triage centers, urgent care clinics, occupational health services, hospices, and nursing homes.
With the aging population and graying of the Baby Boomers, there is an escalating need for more health care workers across the world. Coupled with the explosion in medical technology and discovery of new, more intensive treatments for various diseases, the health care industry is a lucrative field for a career. Diagnosis of diseases is much more sophisticated today and improving every day requiring more radiologists, laboratory technicians, and other ancillary staff.
Along with healthcare jobs will come other health services needs such as file clerks, claims processors, purchasing clerks, food services staff, accountants, and auditors. The need for health care workers will further spur a flexible work schedule enabling part-time and flex-time staff to fill critical positions
Jobs in health care are on the rise and will continue to be into the next three decades. A career in health care can be personally rewarding and will provide a much needed service.
With employers struggling to fill many jobs in healthcare, hiring temporary workers has become increasing popular. Because of this there has been a rise in what are called travel nurses, individuals that take assignments throughout the country. This enables facilities to continue to run smoothly and efficiently with a full staff until a more permanent employee can be found.
Recently it was announced that AlliedVIP.com, a free service provided for Allied Healthcare Professionals, will be changing the way its users apply for jobs in healthcare that require travel. Prior to this users were required to apply to multiple companies separately. Now, members who are interested in positions with various Allied Healthcare Companies will be able to fill out only one online application and have it sent to numerous employers at once.
This improvement is expected to greatly decrease the amount of time it takes for users to apply for healthcare jobs. According to a AlliedVIP.com press release, the demand for qualified healthcare professionals is so great that travel nurses are calling most of the shots when it comes to job opportunities. It is the websites goal to treat each user as the VIP that they are.
Unlike some sites, AlliedVIP.com does not charge those who are already members to research information about companies that are hiring for jobs in healthcare. They also do not charge users for applying for various positions online.
In addition to providing information about available healthcare jobs, the website also has a large database of various important research material that is pertinent to travel nurses such as wage and benefit information, travel guides, and detailed contact information for individual state license boards.
