Methods for Stimulating Employment

Abstract

REGISTRIES are the barometers of nurse employment and at present the readings are very low. This condition is not surprising when we see so much unemployment all around us in groups where the shorter working day and the five and one-half-day week have long been creating more jobs for workers in those industries. Fame if not fortune awaits that person who can make three jobs for nurses grow where two jobs grew before. The majority of our memberssome 65 per cent by conservative estimate-are in the private duty field which is the one most deeply affected by the world-wide economic depression. Some of our registries have had 24 per cent less calls for the special duty nurse last month than they had in September, 1930, and 41 per cent less than during the same period in 1929. It is not unusual for our members to wait three weeks for a call which may not provide more than three days of work, when the long wait begins again. It has been asked, Why do not more nurses leave this over-crowded field? I should answer, Because so many of them are not prepared to do so. Most of the specialities in the nursing field demand a preliminary high school education plus postgraduate work-which is as it should be-to safeguard the future of our profession, but it takes a large endowment of ambition, energy, and native ability for a nurse to continue her education while earning her living in a tento twelve-hour-a-day job. Many are doing so, and I take off my hat to them.