In almost all areas of America there are nursing shortages in progress as our largest age group population, the baby-boomers are retiring out of the workforce and putting new strains on the healthcare systems. In Illinois, it is expected that there will be more than 21,000 empty nursing positions to fill by the year 2020.
For those choosing to enter Illinois nursing careers, there is a wonderful program being offered to reduce your student loans by 5,000 dollars each year for four years to those who would like to enter an area that trains other nurses through programs. Illinois understands that the only way to start to fill all of their job vacancies is to get more teaching nurses involved with training nurses for the available job openings.
Illinois has problems, like being seen in other areas of the country, where newly hired nurses do not stay in their new jobs long-term. With so many nursing jobs available, working nurses are being recruited with incentives into new jobs at a rate that keeps many employers constantly searching for new talent for jobs that are very desirable to have.
As the Illinois nursing programs expand with the help of student loan forgiveness plans and through other ways of enticing instructors into the field of teaching nursing, the classroom waiting lists for training in Illinois are beginning to go down in size. However, it is still not unusual to find an advanced nurses training class having to turn students away due to the nursing teacher shortage problems.
Illinois nursing careers will hold strong in the future. Jobs will continue to be available for nurses who have adequate training in their industry. The baby-boomer population continues to retire over the next 15 years so that each one of those years will be seeing a possible growth in retirement age healthcare usage. Rest homes are an area in Illinois that are showing shortages in nurses now, and this trend is expected to continue into the future.
The future for Illinois nursing programs is a happy one after this state has taken the steps necessary to entice new instructors into their fold. As long as Illinois can continue to train a large number of nurses within their own systems, there is a hope of conquering the overwhelming nursing job availability rate within this state. While some nursing programs might continue to have waiting lists, these lists should ease over time.