Global economy has influenced the fate of many industries and sectors, including the healthcare.

In the previous months, US nurses have called out for relief after finding themselves wrestling from a weakened economy and unemployment amongst their ranks – a scenario that is an opposite of what was witnessed in the previous years of nursing shortage.

According to report, scarce job openings for nurses is affecting a third of new nursing graduates in the US. One major reason for the lack of available jobs is because veteran nurses (those who are in their 50s and 60s) are postponing their retirement to save up or offset lost incomes during an economic crisis in the home front. Experts say, a percentage point decline in nursing unemployment could give way to 30,000 additional nurses in the workforce.

Nonetheless, nursing enrolment has increased, just as healthcare reforms have given rise to demand for nurse care.

In Asia, the uncertainty wielded by the global economic downturn has not clam up the sector - as yet.

In China, which is projected to spend US$1 trillion in healthcare by 2020, according to a report by consulting firm, McKinsey, not only jobs are available, but remuneration as well as working conditions have also improved, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

China nursing has become a desirable profession for men too, according to a report.

Currently, male nurses in China already represent less than 1% of the total nursing profession ( at end of 2012, the number of registered nurses is placed at nearly 2.5 million) and are in demand in the nation's job market, according to the Chinese Nursing Association.

They mainly work in intensive care units, ER departments, cardiovascular departments and mental health units and are in demand especially in key cities like Shanghai and Beijing, where more than 2,000 of an estimated 60,000 registered nurses are male, said the association.

Philippine nurses are getting an upper hand in terms of demand. Recently, the German Embassy announced that the German Federal Employment Agency (BA/ZAV) is hiring a total of 500 Filipino nurses until the end of 2014 as part of the agreement on "Triple Win Migration" with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).

The hired nurse, who will get a starting gross salary of EUR1,900 a month, will have to start as an assistant nurse in a hospital based in Germany, then after recognition of the foreign qualification work, they will be absorbed as qualified nurses, according to a statement from the Embassy.

Locally, the Philippines is also shaping up its healthcare outsourcing services sector, which is expected to create jobs to nursing graduates.

According to Dr Josefina Lauchengco, president of Healthcare Information Management Outsourcing Association of the Philippines, the country is producing yearly about 100,000 medical allied course graduates - majority of these are nurses.

source:mjnnews