Surplus of trained nurses in Philippines?

Does the Philippines have a surplus of trained registered nurses?

what we have is an ARTIFICIAL surplus. we do have the trained nurses BUT they are all clustered in the urban centers or they are abroad (the greater majority, in fact!) so it would seem we have much extra to spare. we have the right numbers but the dispersion is skewed. in truth, there is a dearth of nurses in our near- and far-flung areas.

i don't so,it is just that filipino nurses wants to work abroad for better wages and benefits the filipino employers can't match.

Yes,we have a surplus of trained nurses as of now as Aguilar clearly stated.read more...

"Aguilar said " there is an oversupply of nurses in the local labor market."

Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) spokesperson Alex Aguilar said a total of 21,499 Filipinos took the US National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) for nurses for the first time (excluding repeaters) from January to December 2007.

He said the 2007 NCLEX statistics, released January 24 by the US National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN), 鈥渟olidified鈥?the Philippines鈥?position as America鈥檚 top provider of foreign nurses.

Aguilar said the Philippines readily topped the five countries with the most number of na tionals taking the NCLEX for the first time in 2007.

India came second, with 5,370 examinees; followed by South Korea, 1,906; Canada, 888; and Cuba, 673.

Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) said it expects anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 nursing graduates to take the June 2008 licensure test.

Actually the PI has a shortage of nurses. Specifically the country has a shortage of nurses working in remote areas at little or no pay. Not a shortage of nurses graduating! Or a shortage of registered nurses. Most nurses in PI either do not work in PI or travel abroad to more than 1/2 dozen countries like UK, Ireland, Scotland, USA, Canada, UAE, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore etc. Not all travel as nurses though.

The reason for this is low pay in the nursing field, with many nurses in the provinces making less than 100 US dollars a month, and in the city a high paid govt nurse makes less than 400 US dollars a month. But in some very remote areas nurses are expected to work long hours for as little as 20 dollars a month and sometimes nothing at all except a bed and some rice. The problem is that the nurses are treated badly by the doctors and are looked down upon by a corrupt government. Often when there are enough nurses to hire in underpaid and mistreated positions. This is why they seek to leave PI, not just for the money but the respect and dignity they deserve.

Many nurses actually graduate from nursing school and refuse to work in hospital in PI and instead find another job outside healthcare. The question is whether the western demand for nurses causes the shortage or causes the large number of graduates. Likely the later, as many filipino's attend college at age 16 and graduate at age 20 (there's only 10 grades). These 16 year old hs grads choose nursing only as a means of leaving the PI, and if such an option was not available, they would choose another degree that woud be best to leave PI.

Let's say all countries stopped taking nurses from PI, then they accepted airline pilots. Well, tons of Filipino's would now attend airline school. If countries began refusing nurses but took cooks, tons would switch from nursing to cooking. So it's a bit of a misnomer to blame the nursing shortage on Western recruitment. In fact western recruitment inspires a large number of nursing graduates and inspires those graduates to seek experience.

Further, western recruitment is the reason the most experience nurses in the PI leave first, because recruiters have high standards for experience, those working in nursing ERs and ICUs with experience are the easiest to pass recruitment standards. That means those working in remote locations or working outside nursing, or more commonly the newest graduates are filling roles of the experienced nurses. So western recruitment causes a high turn over, just as "travel nursing recruitment" causes a high turn over amongst specialty nurses in western countries.

So why don't nurses in the provinces work--because there is no job despite the shortage, there really is a lack of employment. The issue in the PI is the ready supply of nurses avaialble for hiring and the loss of the most experienced nureses drains the system. Those who don't work were turned away after graduation and now have trouble getting a job in PI and the US. For example, in the PI many persons working in blue collar jobs have degrees, and those jobs needing degree holders have many many many to choose from. I have friends with college degree in hospitality who got jobs as waitress in Manila but are paid not only very little, but they are not paid on time. Sometimes not being paid at all, and their tips are kept. These workers live with their parents and pray for an opportunity to come from their exploitation in the hotel business. This particular hotel doesn't pay most of their employees regularly either. In the case of the PI nursing is the one example, where the slate is a little more tight and there is less exploitation of nurses in the cities due to healthy competition from western recruiters.

I think you have a surplus of nurses wanting to get the hell out of the country on your hands. But generally speaking you do have alot of nurses and I imagine it would be hard to find work for them all.