Tampa Bay Ranked 5th for Healthcare Jobs in August (houses, job openings)

[housingcrashsurvivor]

Looking for a job in healthcare or nursing? Tampa Bay is the place to be | Tampa Bay Times

...A national job-tracking firm found the Tampa Bay market ranks 5th among major metro areas for the number of healthcare job openings in the month of August.

Tampa Bay's 33,398 openings were behind only Atlanta (34,492), Boston (38,101), Los Angeles (42,961) and No. 1 New York (43,879) last month, and ahead of such larger markets as Chicago and Houston...

What's driving Tampa Bay's job surge? Interviews with area healthcare leaders and with California-based job-tracking firm Simply Hired shed at least some light on this area's summer healthcare boom. Five healthcare businesses lead the charge in this metro area in seeking to expand their hiring. They were HCA, BayCare Health System, Community Health Systems — all three are major hospital chains — as well as HCR Manor Care and Genesis Healthcare.

...In an interview, Simply Hired director of demand generation Susan Martindill said that the greatest demand in virtually all U.S. healthcare markets, including Tampa Bay, is for registered nurses. But she said the Tampa Bay metro area registered a "disproportionate number" of openings for home healthcare aides and emergency medical technicians. Nationally, home health care aides made up 0.5 percent of August's job openings but 2.5 percent in the Tampa Bay market. Martindill attributed the spike to the larger number of retirees in the Tampa Bay area who are more likely to need assistance at home with longer term care.

...the nursing field dominates healthcare job opportunities, accounting for seven out of 10 available jobs in the industry. In addition to RNs, the healthcare roles in highest demand include licensed practical nurse, nursing assistant, service manager and medical assistant. Based on national wage figures, RNs can make close to $33 an hour and LPNs about $20 an hour, with nursing assistant paid closer to $12 an hour and home healthcare aides about $10 an hour.

[vaughanwilliams]

Interesting article. Wages are based on "national wage figures" so it's safe to assume they'll be lower in Tampa Bay. IMO, all the people who fill these positions should be paid a heck of a lot more. $10 an hour for a home healthcare aide is abysmal.

[stevo75]

amazing how low the pay is for healthcare.

[Vannort54]

Florida nurses pay is one of the lowest in the country my wifs friend is a traveling nurse they avoide Florida because of the low pay.

[MAniacTHW]

There's a dude I went to high school with who does home healthcare (I don't know what he does, he never went to college). Had they run his criminal record, he wouldn't be working in the elderly's houses.

[BucFan]

doubt if he's a registered nurse....more likely a nurse's assistant

[housingcrashsurvivor]

Just to restate the article: home healthcare aids make up merely 2.5% of that healthcare aspect of the current Tampa jobs market.

Even at that, $10/hr might go to the home healthcare aid--which is basically a relatively untrained but very useful baby sitter for dementia patients, or the otherwise disabled, someone to cook and help bathe, make sure someone is taking their meds (though not administering them) etc.--but more money is likely paid to the agency supplying the healthcare aid. So less expensive than a nursing home, allows for some independence, but not exactly cheap for the patient.

As to other salaries, I just googled quickly this:

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=nurse+salary+tampa

The average salary for a Tampa Registered Nurse is $62,345 , which is 5.4% below the national average of $65,920 . Salaries estimates based on 99 salaries submitted anonymously to Glassdoor by Registered Nurse employees in Tampa, FL.

[dothetwist]

As a local patient, I find local nurses and other healthcare professionals to be almost uniformly cheerful, happy and helpful...not in a forced way, but they do seem to be enjoying their jobs.

As someone who lived 30+ years in DC-Metro, that was rarely the case there.

When people in a workplace are happy, it shows in their demeanor. Money while a major factor in employee satisfaction, isn't the only barometer of workplace attitude.

[Vannort54]

Originally Posted by housingcrashsurvivor

Just to restate the article: home healthcare aids make up merely 2.5% of that healthcare aspect of the current Tampa jobs market.

Even at that, $10/hr might go to the home healthcare aid--which is basically a relatively untrained but very useful baby sitter for dementia patients, or the otherwise disabled, someone to cook and help bathe, make sure someone is taking their meds (though not administering them) etc.--but more money is likely paid to the agency supplying the healthcare aid. So less expensive than a nursing home, allows for some independence, but not exactly cheap for the patient.

As to other salaries, I just googled quickly this:

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=nurse+salary+tampa

The average salary for a Tampa Registered Nurse is $62,345 , which is 5.4% below the national average of $65,920 . Salaries estimates based on 99 salaries submitted anonymously to Glassdoor by Registered Nurse employees in Tampa, FL.

Man just read some of those articles and the nurses that make the $30 plus an hour get this much because you have to get your own bennifits. If you take their bennifits the pay drops to around $24 an hour. My wifs friend was right Florida pays their nurse's one of the lowest saleries.

[BucFan]

Originally Posted by dothetwist

As a local patient, I find local nurses and other healthcare professionals to be almost uniformly cheerful, happy and helpful...not in a forced way, but they do seem to be enjoying their jobs.

As someone who lived 30+ years in DC-Metro, that was rarely the case there.

When people in a workplace are happy, it shows in their demeanor. Money while a major factor in employee satisfaction, isn't the only barometer of workplace attitude.

They've done studies in the nursing field that show there are more important motivators for nurses other than salary - staffing levels, appreciation, personal satisfacation, autonomy are others. I would be interested to see a comparison of nurse to patient ratios (ie the number of patients each nurse is responsible for) - thats a variable that would be important to look at. I'd expect nurses who make more have a higher ratio and work themselves to death and probably suffer burnout as well. There's a safety factor involved as well. In summary, wage per hour for nurses doesn't tell the entire story on how great the work environment is.