Looking for work in this recession

When the news and others began to say that we were headed for a recession, I thought, "Well, we've been through others before." Of course, then I was not old enough to be looking for a job let alone holding one. This time around I was old enough. Since I have spent the last few years working in group homes and now at nursing home, I wanted to gain experience in some other field. So, I've been perusing the classifieds, most especially the job ads, over the last few years. I have been struck by decrease in inches for the jobs available line and an increase in the jobs wanted line.

I have also been struck by the types of jobs that are available. There are a lot of sales jobs. That didn't really surprise me, considering sales jobs mostly depend on commission earnings and people are more likely to spend less on the big items in a recession. There were also an incredible number of nursing assistant jobs. That one did surprise me, until I read a series of articles in the St. Paul paper about nursing assistant, especially those on the night shift, feeling understaffed. The purposed result being an alarming increase in resident falls. Then, I noticed things at my own nursing home, where I too worked on the night shift.

Our little nursing home was taken over by a large company from the cities that owns several from the lower cities all the way up to Crosby, Mn. The first thing was to change the supplies we were using to ones that, in the nursing assistants' opinions, were less effective. Then, we were told we could only use so many gloves and they ordered less. That was followed by rumors that we were only going to have one nurse between two halls. several of the staff on the night shift left, changed to a different shift, or lessened their hours. We were working with the absolute bare minimum of everything. Following that there were a couple of incidents. It is sad to say that people who have worked all their life and are paying to be taken care of, don't seem to be getting what their paying for in the current economic climate. It is also sad that so many nursing assistants feel so uncomfortable at work that they leave. The high turn over isn't good for the residents of nursing homes, especially the Alzheimer residents, the nursing assistants, or the company, who are paying for people on the floor and people training.