Foreign-born nurses, as well as married nurses over age 50, are easing the national nursing shortage that has affected American hospitals since 1998, according to a study that appeared in the November/December issue of the Journal of Health Affairs.  104,000 nurses entered the work force last year, and researchers cite reasons such as rising nurse wages and a slow national economic status for this boom.  Nearly one-third of these new nurses are immigrants.

The study found that the high demand for hospital nurses increased rates of pay by nearly 5 percent, which is double the wage increase for nurses working outside of hospitals.

In New Jersey, for example, statistics from the Hospital Association show the nurse vacancy rate has fallen from 13.5 percent during the period from January to June of 2002 to 8.94 percent the same time period this year.  Nurse turnover has also decreased.

The rise in hospital nurses can be attributed to the incentives and benefits that are offered to them.  These can include tuition reimbursement, on-site childcare, flexible scheduling, assistance with caring for elderly parents, and a salary increase of about 25 percent over the past two years.

Many registered nurses are now applying for employment after being absent from the work force for long time periods.

A detrimental situation may arise if this trend continues, the study advises.  The demand for registered nurses is expected to increase over the next 20 years, with the number of older nurses peaking in 2010.  However, after that time most of these nurses are expected to retire, potentially triggering a major nursing shortage.

In the meantime, nursing schools are having to turn many applicants away because of limited budgets and the inability to accept more students, despite an increasing number of applications.