HOUSTON _ The skyscrapers at the Texas Medical Center are filled with hospital beds. The commuters waiting in the heat for the train wear scrubs. The young woman dodging traffic on a bicycle may be studying to be a doctor, a nurse or a dentist.
Houston is known for its energy jobs, but registered nurses are the most in-demand workers in town.
"Whatever jobs we have, we keep expanding. And our competitors are doing the same," said Thomas Vernon, a human resources director for Houston Methodist, which has a large hospital at the medical complex here. Last year the health system hired about 1,200 nurses across its seven hospitals.
Nursing jobs in Houston sit open for a long time. It takes Houston Methodist an average of 55 workdays to hire an RN. Nationally health care jobs take longer to fill than jobs in most other industries: 49 workdays as of the last count in September, according to DHI Hiring Indicators, a research group.
It's tempting to argue that nurse hiring difficulties, in Houston and across the nation, would go away if more people graduated from nursing programs. And many cities do need more graduates _ but that's not the only problem.
Hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies and doctor's offices, like a lot of employers across the country, have a specific resume in mind. Employers often want new hires to have experience in a specialty such as operating room nursing. They may not be able to raise wages to easily attract that experience. Meanwhile many new nurses, armed with a degree that's supposedly a ticket to the middle class, struggle to land their first job.
Colleges aren't equipped to deal with this disconnect. Some employers, such as Houston Methodist, are addressing the problem by beefing up their internships and in-house training. New York City is testing a transition program to help new nurses get work experience.
A long-term solution for the nursing workforce also would have to resolve critical pay issues, including whether Medicare and Medicaid fee schedules support competitive wages, and figure out how to make sure nurses don't get burned out and quit.
