Spring 2020 New Graduate Employment and Workforce Issues During the Pandemic: A Secondary Analysis of New York State and National Trends

Background: In March 2020, the nation faced a public health crisis, COVID-19, that prompted a national response of many states issuing state-wide “lock-down” orders. This also forced nursing schools throughout the country to instantly convert to other learning options and many clinicals cancelled, moved to online or simulated experiences. Graduation that year launched nursing students into a healthcare system that was operating in emergency mode facing unprecedented admissions and deaths due to the pandemic. While hiring experienced nurses was a priority for hospital administrators in New York state, at the epicenter of the east coast infections, graduating seniors everywhere faced a different job market and workplace environment. Objectives: The purpose of this secondary analysis focused on variables related to the job search, employment opportunities, and “news” about hiring new graduates in the year of COVID-19, comparing the 2020 reported experiences with previous years and focusing on New York. Using data collected and published by the National Student Nurses Association (NSNA), this study filtered and sorted the variables related to employment, perceptions of the job market, and nursing education experiences of student members who graduated in 2020 and focused to report on New York state vs. national comparisons workforce issues and outcomes of the abrupt educational changes that occurred. Methods: The deidentified data were exported from surveys distributed via SurveyMonkey® by NSNA in the Fall/Winter following Spring 2020 graduation. The data from 2020 included a sample of 3,074 responses that were cleaned, sorted, and coded for the descriptive quantitative analysis. They were filtered to compare New York only, with national graduates’ reported experiences in the job market and their confidence in their nursing practice in their new jobs. Results: The analyses demonstrated significant differences in the comparisons of several employment findings from the national sample versus those from the New York sample. New graduates from New York reported only 59% success in finding jobs, compared to the rate of national new graduates (85%). Their perceived hiring trends, as they searched for jobs, were also different for New York versus those from the national sample. Most importantly, while confidence was affected for all new graduates of 2020, the New York sample reported significantly lower confidence mean scores when compared to the national sample, with associations related to the clinical experiences that were discontinued or simulated online. Conclusion: The results of the survey yielded significant differences in the comparisons of new graduate employment success for the New York state sample compared to the national trends. The greater impact of job searching during the COVID-19 early months on New York graduates can be interpreted upon closer examination of the timeline of the disease escalation and hiring trends.