Filipino registered nurses who wish to work in United Statesmight want to consider looking for other overseas destinations where the chances for them to be hired is higher. This is because according to Party List Representative, Arnel Ty, the USlabor market would not have great demand for foreign nurses until 2020.

Ty, the Representative of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers’ Association (LPG-MA) said, “Right now, they have ample supply of US-educated nurses.”

Citing a report from America’s National Council of State Boards of Nursing, the congressman said that from year 2006-2011, the US produced almost a million nurses.

Ty predicts that the US may need to hire more Filipino and other foreign nurses again in eight (8) years when thousands of US-based nurses enter retirement age.

America experienced mass shortage of nurses in 1998 which resulted to great demand for foreign nurses.  The nursing jobs in US for qualified Filipino nurses then comes with a very high salary with tons of benefits that it created an increase in the number of nursing graduates who wish to pursue a career in US.

Unfortunately, the US has since overcome their nursing shortage problem as the number of American nurses increased.

The Philippines is now trying to solve the problem of oversupply of nursing graduates, many of whom are either unemployed or underemployed.  

To help the nursing graduates, Ty is proposing a law that  “would establish a special local jobs plan for idle Filipino nurses, now estimated at more than 300,000.”

Ty filed House Bill 4582, which seeks an expanded version of the Nurses Assigned in Rural Service or NARS, “the short-lived Philippine government project that enlisted nurses to improve healthcare in poverty-stricken towns.”

Ty’s said the Special Program for the Employment of Nurses in Urban and Rural Services (NURSE) “would mobilize a total of 10,000 practitioners every year.”