What is the Job Market Outlook for Travel Nurses Moving into 2023
If you are familiar with contract or travel work in the healthcare industry, you are concerned with what open contracts are out there. Some frequent questions are: what positions are available? Where? What is the pay like? When can I start? How long is the contract? This is not just a trait for CNAs (Certified Nursing Assistant), LVNs (Licensed Vocational Nurse), or RNs (Registered Nurse), this applies to respiratory therapists, phlebotomists, and psychologists as well.
The healthcare market is a specific market that will, theoretically, never have a low demand for workers. With over 153 million patient days across the US and almost 30 million discharges in the past fiscal year, the fact is simple: healthcare workers will always have patients that rely on them, and in turn will have some form of job security.
While everyone can understand this, we do need to address that some places will have more demand than others – for example, California may need more respiratory therapists than Montana due to the sheer difference in population. On the other hand, places that have a seasonal influx of people, like Alaska, may only need more nurses during the summer months to accommodate the increased population.
The underlying point is that there are many factors that go into the determination of rates, contract duration, and needs that vary depending on location. What we do know is that healthcare has a projected growth of 13% through 2031; an increase of 2 million jobs over that time period. With a median wage of $75,000 across the board according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we can see this is a little over double the median wage in the US at $35,000, according to the FRED Economic data. This can give us a little insight into what this means for travel positions. We can assume that higher skilled positions (as defined as positions that require more schooling/certification) will see rates that are closer or higher than the median wage than positions with lower barriers of entry. We can also assume that places with higher costs of living will also have higher wages to accommodate travel workers. This can be seen using data from a large VMS organization, where we see the top paying RN (Registered Nurse) positions are surpassing $100 per hour in California but are closer to $70 per hour in places like North Carolina and Minnesota.
A question that comes up often is “What positions are in the highest demand?” This is extremely hard to answer from an agency standpoint because we must take into consideration 2 things: do you classify how long a job has been open for an indication of demand? Or do you consider the contract with the highest number of open positions an indication of demand? This could be anecdotal, but I would consider our psychologist / LMFT (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist) positions with a large correctional organization. These positions have been open for years, with a constant need for mental health workers and a remarkably high pay rate of $100-$120+ per hour.
All-in-all, if there is one thing you can take away from this, it is that contract specifics are determined based on a multitude of factors, but there will always be a demand for healthcare workers across the US. The best way to navigate through this is to find a recruiting agency that is transparent and honest with their candidates and goes the extra mile when determining what is available.
At B2B Staffing Services, we work with thousands of candidates to find contracts that match their needs. We employ hundreds of healthcare workers throughout the year, and pride ourselves in the ability to find openings for harder to fill positions like mental health workers and RRTs (Registered Respiratory Therapists). If you’re interested in learning about what open positions are available, check out our open jobs here. If you want to reach out to a recruiter directly, or have a recruiter reach out to you, please check out our contact form here.