Higher number of jobless nurses feared

WITH THE additional 32,000 new nurses who passed the recent licensure examinations, recruiters are worried that many would not be able to immediately find jobs in other countries due to the requirement of two or three years experience in tertiary hospitals.

In a text message to BusinessWorld, Lito B. Soriano, executive director of the Federated Association of Manpower Exporters, said nursing students should consider shifting to a different course due to stringent qualifications.

"The nurses who [recently] passed licensure exams will not be able to find overseas jobs unless they gain two to three years experience in tertiary hospitals preferably in specialty areas.

"They join close to 200,000 unemployed licensed nurses. Enrolled student nurses should review their options to shift to engineering, ladderize courses and technical vocations," said Mr. Soriano.

Less than half of the 77,901 examinees (32,617) passed the recent licensure exam.

This is our free preview of this article...

To enjoy reading the story in full, please log in to Codex. Or, if you are not yet a subscriber, please subscribe now to BusinessWorld.