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Single Dad Nurses A Stable Future

Tribune photo by JIM REED

Many jobseekers, like Johnny Blues, are turning to the nursing profession as a career choice that is recession-proof.

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By MICHAEL SASSO

msasso@tampatrib.com

Published: March 1, 2009

TAMPA - After years of working in an underappreciated profession, nurses and nursing students have a new swagger in their steps.

"When I graduate, I know I will be able to get a job," said Johnny Blues, a nursing student at Hillsborough Community College who is entering the field at age 47.

Like many others, Blues is making a 180-degree career turn, partly because he wants a more satisfying profession and partly because of the security of a health care job. He currently works in product assembly, putting together unfinished barbecue grills, bicycles and furniture for stores and customers.

Across Florida, almost every industry has been touched by the recession. A few examples: construction jobs are down 15.6 percent over the past year, insurance agency and brokerage jobs are down 2.1 percent, and air transportation jobs are down 5.8 percent

Health care is starting to get hit, too, with small layoffs here and there, but overall it has been an island of stability. Between December 2007 and December 2008, Florida employment in health care and social assistance rose from 887,600 jobs to an estimated 924,800 jobs, a jump of 4.2 percent, according to data from the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation.

Nursing Schools Get Popular

With the increase in jobs has come an interest in health care careers, even though the number of job seekers still outstrips demand.

At BayCare Health System - which operates health care centers that include the St. Joseph's, St. Anthony's and Morton Plant hospital systems - the number of job applicants for all positions soared to 121,092 last year, up 55 percent from 2007, when it received 78,236 applications.

Nursing schools, too, are seeing more interest. At Hillsborough Community College, the number of applicants for its nursing program is up about 60 percent.

"My best guess is that, for an economy that's troubled, nursing is a stable career," said HCC's nursing program manager, Rise Sandrowitz.

For Blues, nursing couldn't be more of a shift.

A former infantryman who spent two of his four years in the Army in Germany, Blues left to become a product assembler, paid by the number of furniture or consumer goods he assembles. He never made a lot of money - in a good year he might earn $35,000 - but it generally paid the bills.

This year has been particularly tough. With the recession, stores haven't needed as much assistance assembling unfinished merchandise, and Blues figures his income has fallen 50 percent in the past six months. Complicating things, he is a single father with custody of a 15-year-old son.

One day, while coaching his son's soccer team, he began chatting with the parents of a boy on the team. Both were studying to become registered nurses.

"That planted a little seed right there," he said.

Juggling Job, School Costs

To him, nursing seemed a way to earn a professional wage in a rewarding field with a two-year degree. He enrolled at HCC and is paying the roughly $7,000 cost of the nursing program with student loans and a small federal grant.

He is heartened by the demand for nursing even in a recession, but is feeling the financial strain of paying for school while juggling cutbacks at his job, and is eagerly awaiting graduation in about a year. Recently, his bank cut the home equity line of credit that he occasionally tapped into.

"There's my graduation date, and I'm always weighing, 'Am I going to make it?'" he said.

The health care industry isn't immune to the recession. BayCare Health System continues to hire nurses, lab technicians and other workers, but it has few openings for support positions because employee turnover in areas such as IT and human resources is exceptionally low right now, said BayCare's communications director, Amy Lovett.

Hospital company HCA, which has nine hospitals in the Bay area, has had minor layoffs recently in various fields, but is still recruiting for registered nurses and highly skilled critical-care positions, an HCA spokeswoman said. Some hospitals and nursing recruiters say there are fewer winter residents in the Bay area this year, which is reducing the demand for nurses.

But some in the field know how lucky they are.

Blues has an infectious optimism that helps him fight off suggestions that he's too old to become a nurse.

"I've talked to people who say, 'Well, I'm too old.' And I say, 'Wait a minute, don't tell that to me.'"

Reporter Michael Sasso can be reached at (813) 259-7865.

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