November 17, 2021 – Amidst high demand and a competitive market, nurses nationwide are earning raises worth thousands of dollars a year from hospitals.
The need for nurses has risen so high that many have been able to make even better livings by leaving hospital payrolls and instead hopping between temporary jobs seeking emergency staffing, hospital recruiters and executives say.
The average annual salary for registered nurses, not including bonus pay such as overtime, grew about 4% in the first nine months of the year to $81,376, according to healthcare consultants Premier Inc., which analyzed salaries of about 60,000 nurses for The Wall Street Journal.
That’s up from the 3.3% increase in average annual nurse wages in all of 2020 and 2.6% growth the year before the pandemic, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
HCA Healthcare Inc. increased nurse pay this year to handle heavy Covid-19 pandemic case loads and keep pace with rivals that are also trying to fill vacancies and hold on to existing staff, according to The Wall Street Journal. While raises varied by market, an HCA spokesperson declined to say by what amounts.
Other hospitals also say they have raises in the works to keep up with competitors’ offers. Citizens Memorial Hospital (Bolivar, MO) this month raised nurse salaries by up to 5% after hospitals nearly 40 miles away boosted wages.
“We were forced to,” said Sarah Hanak, chief nursing officer at Citizens Memorial Hospital. “We absolutely have to stay competitive.”
The changes have increased both turnover and job openings at hospitals, leading to chronic staffing shortages as Covid-19 cases keep coming and many patients who had postponed care for other conditions seek treatment.
Nurse turnover rates have increased to about 22% this year, compared with an annual rate of around 18% in 2019, the last year before the pandemic, says Premier.
“We are employing more nurses now than we ever have, and we also have more vacancies than we ever had,” said Greg Till, chief people officer at Providence (Renton, WA) health system, which operates 52 hospitals across seven states.
Jefferson Health, which has 18 hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, raised salaries 10% for its nearly 10,000 nurses in May after the system found rivals had increased compensation, said Kate FitzPatrick, who became the system’s chief nurse executive in January.