Travel nurses pay skyrockets to over $100K during pandemic

• Travel nurses have seen wages nearly triple due to staffing shortages around the country.
• The healthcare industry desperately needs more full-time nurses.
• Hospitals are offering big bonuses for full-time positions, up to $40,000.

Nurses aren’t often labeled as high earners in the medical field, but times are changing, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.

Travel nurses, or nurses who travel to areas in response to staffing shortages, are the latest to join the $100,000 club, as wages have nearly tripled for some workers, leaving hospitals around the country panicking and offering bonuses to retain talent.

The Wall Street Journal reported travel-nurse pay has skyrocketed because of the pandemic. According to Vivian Health, the average gross weekly wages for a travel nurse were $1,600 per week in December 2019 but have risen to more than $3,500. That equates to $182,000 a year.

The cause for the bump isn’t surprising, according to experts. Cities like New York City demanded more workers when they became epicenters of the pandemic in March 2020. During that period, reports surfaced that travel nurses were earning $10,000 per week for a 13-week gig.

Now, hospitalizations are surging around the country because of the Delta variant, and travel nurses are needed once again.

One travel nurse, who bounced around Miami, New York City, and Texas over the past 16 months, went from making $45 an hour as a staff intensive-care nurse to $120 an hour in an intensive care unit in McAllen, Texas.

Staffing shortages lead to mistakes

A quarter of bedside nursing vacancies are currently vacant in the Harris Health System in Houston, up from 8% before the pandemic, according to the Wall Street Journal. In an effort to promote hiring, the hospital said it would hike pay to $140 an hour for all emergency-room and adult-ICU nurses until staffing levels return to normal.

With so few experienced staff on hand, Harris Health said the shortages have created an experience gap at hospitals, meaning inexperienced nurses are getting cases they typically wouldn’t get early on, which could lead to costly mistakes.

Hospitals ‘desperate,’ offering big bonuses

Now hospitals are offering bonuses like Wall Street firms do, topping out at $40,000.

Here are some of the institutions offering nurses’ bonuses for signing long-term positions:

• Monument Health Hospital (Rapid City, South Dakota): $40,000
• Temple University Hospital (Philadelphia,): $20,000
• St. Charles Health (Bend, Oregon): $10,000
• Allegheny Health Network (Pittsburgh): $15,000

Hospitals in Indiana are also offering bonuses. One report said that some are offering $7,500 sign-on bonuses.

“We’re going into this next surge with little, you know, little to less staff than what we had before,” Emily Sego, president of the Indiana State Nurses Association, said. “That’s the scary part of this.”

According to News 4 Nashville, the states most in need of travel nurses right now include California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Tennessee.