[dguest]

The traveling nurse phenomenon is exemplary bureaucratic absurdity. To paraphrase a conversation with a nurse friend:

Nurse: It's really hard for us to hold on to our good nurses, we can't afford support staff so they get stressed out and leave for traveling gigs.

Me: Why can't you afford support staff?

Nurse: The traveling nurses cost 3x more. We have to hire traveling nurses to replace the ones that left for traveling gigs.

Me: ...

Nurse: I know...

Me: Can't we just... pretend they are all traveling nurses?

Nurse: I know...

I'm not a big fan of defrauding your employer, but sort of hope that some of these "traveling nurses" are somehow swapping gigs secretly and subletting their temporary housing to college students.

[SamuelAdams]

Part of it is that travelers are contractors. Management only has to pay for that contract for 3-6 months, then technically that cost is no longer an issue.

Whereas an FTE nurse is a recurring annual expense, so higher wages will lead to higher long-term costs.

Everyone in hospital administration is expecting demand to die down once COVID surges die down, so they don’t want to make any long-term financial changes.