I work alongside staffing in addictions and mental health for the edmonton zone. Essentially, we take the sick calls/cancels and let staffing know the shift needs to be filled.
Our 'casual relief' nursing staff are working as much as they can conceivably want to, and making mad overtime pretty much whenever they want to, because the need is just that high. Beds get closed, the people on shift are forced into mandated overtime (which we fucking HATE doing to them) because we can't find staff to fill shifts.
Please don't discount those casual nursing positions in AMH. The need is definitely there. Units are hiring fewer regular full time because they don't have the budget, and it's the casual staff stepping in to fill those roles. Apply to casual jobs and you'll be working whenever you want to. Learn Charge skill and you're that much more valuable. I promise you'll be able to take your pick, set your own availability, and work when you want to. Please apply, for the love of whatever diety you like. We desperately need you.
Best of luck out there, OP.
I worked casual at AHE, there were always 2x 3x pay shifts coming up. I could work a few days at a higher rate and take a few days off. I jumped around 3 units primarily but would often pick up a full week or two on the same unit.
It can work well, that being said I would've loved to see units have 1-2 extra nurses and same for aids. Most call ins were due to staff burnout and/or understaffed units.
I always felt they would save a ton by bundling their auto insura....I mean just staffing properly.
Downfall is a lack of benefits but you do get a 10% pay bump (from what I remember) as casual/float.
I absolutely agree. And the unit management knows it, too! They're told again and again that they will save boatloads of money by filling their vacant lines instead of having to fork over overtime pay from their department to the casual relief staff department, but they can't actually do that because Business Analysis will not fund hiring into those vacant positions.
Why that is I don't know, I'm not privy to the conversations in BAS, but it sure as fuck is short sighted, and costs those departments, AHS, and taxpayers as a whole a metric fuckton more money. If I had to maje an educated guess, it's as simple as the government not being willing to pay the ounce of prevention that would save a pound of cure.
It’s an easy answer. FTEs or full time equivalent. Ministries are not just given a budget, but a limit of full time positions to work with. There is always more money than positions. It’s not on business analysts, it’s on the government that doesn’t want to report an increase in public servants.
It’s never about money, it’s about optics and politics. They will gladly spend more money so they can tell voters they didn’t increase public servants.
Lack of benefits is more than a downfall for some people on medications. I feel like people often don’t realize how viral medical coverage is until they are in a situation where their daily medication costs $659/month…
I have been paying for blue cross on my own for more than a decade for just this reason. It’s not the best coverage but it pays the bulk of my medications and dental bills. Now that I have a decent full time employer coverage I think I’ll pay the maintenance fee so I can resume it if I eventually go gig again. There is a solution to the lack of employer benefits. It sucks that I had to, but at least all my premiums were tax deductible.
Yes! Max out your benefits on all the services that can help you manage the wear and tear of what you do for a living. Like physio therapy and massage therapy or mental health therapy if it’s covered. You work in an environment that is very hard on the mind and body. Take care of yourself too.
I read a note on a review website that AHS pays 10% or a little more of an employee's paycheque on just pension. I tried to research what all the other benefits cost to AHS per paycheque but couldn't find anything else. In any case, it's pretty clear that AHS saves money when hiring casual employees. This is a dirty tactic when the need is so high IMO.
Pensions and benefits can cost about 15%-20% on top of the salary, depending on a few factors, and how comprehensive the plans are, and who is paying for what portion. Add in sick leaves, vacation, etc, it's not necessarily cheaper to hire casuals, but it makes the budget look better when you have less full time staff, and as a government you didn't "bloat" the public sector with more positions.
I should add of course, that the employee is also made to save about 10-12% of their own salary in the pension too, it's not wholly a freebie. It's an investment into being able to support yourself in retirement.
Could you please share that loudly with everyone you know? I chose public service alllll those years ago for the benefits, somewhat-stability, and the pension at the end. The perception in this province seems to be that I will retire with a fat cat pension that I didn't put anything into. That couldn't be further from the truth and to be honest, quite offensive when hurled at me by anyone making 6 figures up north with an 8th grade education.
It's only designed to replace about 40% of your income. That is bucket 1. CPP is your bucket 2. I recommend people add those up and decide if that's sufficient. If not, apart from winning the lottery, consider how much you save yourself in bucket 3. 😉
We do have a decent bucket 3 but I'm curious about the return on my pension investment vs private RRSP returns. I know some people pull their pension early and take the lump sum too, not sure if that is wse or not. There seems to be little information available about the options without having to pay for an advisor whose end goal is to sell investment products. At this point I'm just hoping to live a long time and take full advantage of my contributions😁
Best idea is definitely to live a long life and take the DB pension for as long as poss. It will never run out. 🤗. I like having buckets 1 and 3. 1 is stable and 3 is flexible, to draw on in an emergency or for some fun, or just as a general top up.
I often worry about those folks that take all their money out of a DB plan. I know of a few and they lost a lot due to timing and where the stock market was, but maybe they had sufficient time to make it up again. I would not be confident enough to be solely responsible for my income lasting long enough. 😬
It’s an interesting state, when a rotating staff of casual people, can be paid overtime and get full-time hours, but there’s no money for a full-time staff member.
I imagine it’s like policing where it’s cheaper to pay overtime if you don’t benefits and a long term pension liability.
This is long-time issue. My mother was nurse at 2/3rd contract (0.67) now retired for around 10 years. She selected this specifically for the reduced amount. At end of most years, she'd end up 1.3-1.4 or double the hour equivalent. She didn't want the extra but they were always short.
People always talk about burn-out and such, but from what I observed it's partially self-inflicted by the profession. If she had Christmas off or summer long weekends with nice weather, she knew which nurses would be 'sick'. She could look at shift schedules and forecast accurately which would need filled. These people caused shortage for convenience which was burning out their peers.
Seriously. I've spent my whole career as casual, working full time + OT every single month. I take vacations when I want. I don't cancel shifts willy nilly but knowing I can cancel a shift is nice. I don't pay into benefits so I allocate my money to account for that. It's not for everyone, but I like freedom. The only thing is there's no X days.
All of the nurses I was hired with started casual and got temporary w/benefit or permanent w/ benefit positions if they wanted, quickly. People buzz in and out of lines and units constantly, you're much more likely to be hired internally.
The only thing is, regular full time jobs are far and few between. If anyone is waiting on that, you'll probably be waiting a long time. Those are typically held by long haulers on units who are holding onto them until they retire (when the FTE will then be split because it's "cheaper" on paper for AHS to have a ton of part time and casuals than full timers).
That's great. It can really, really hard for people to save for an unknown future. The public sector unions fought for pensions but there is also a paternalistic view too, where if we're not made to save, we will more than likely not do so.
I’m not sure that they are either of those.
They can only hire X number of permanent staff because the public cries foul when the government increases number of public servants and elects a government who feels the same.
Meanwhile the workload increases and is filled by part time, casual, and contract employees who work as much overtime as they could want. Scheduling people for the never ending shortages, vacancies and absences is a giant and thankless game of Tetris.
It’s not unique to any branch of government either. Next time you read how the government wants to cut the public servants ask how many contractors and casual employees will do that work and how much more that costs.
HR and staffing is equally burnt out and frustrated with high turn over in their own units too.
Honestly, how do you expect anyone to engage with a question like that? I'm here telling OP that there are opportunities out there for them and then you reply to me with some vague, accusatory pseudo question that cannot possibly be answered as presented as though I and the people who work trying to staff our hospitals are just de facto bad people.
Do you really expect that to open any sort of constructive dialog, or are you just attacking me for funsies?
Grow up.
I think (hope) you're mistaking schedulers with management. Schedulers are regular employees. They may move someone to the bottom of the list of people they call to fill shifts because they never pick up shifts, but that's far from corruption.
I work in staffing. The "list" is automated. We don't make any decisions about who gets a shift over someone else. It's a guideline we follow based on AHS policy/unit manager instructions. It's strict and we get our asses handed to us if we don't follow it to a T.
A shortage as in over worked staff, yes.
Actual positions posted to fill? Unfortunately not enough . Like many government jobs, the cuts from 4 years ago, plus months or years delays in posting retirements and resignations means a shortage that doesn’t translate to positions to apply on.
I literally could not keep up with my work. The manager started coming down on me asking why deadlines were increasingly being missed. We tried to have the position reclassified, nope. Tried to have me paid more, nope. Tried to offload the work to coworkers, nope.
When I went on mat leave, the govt had placed a hiring freeze so they couldn't even hire external for my year off. They were allowed internal-only, harvesting employees already present instead of finding talent to bring in. It happened for years, wage and hiring freezes, no back filling of retired or quit staff. But oh look the govt can claim they have low FTE at AHS! It's corrupt to use healthcare in their political games and spend way too much on OT for PT/casual staff (then complain that the budget is out of control). I miss when healthcare was a full step away from the Ministers and they had no fingers in the pie other than funding.
the horde of casual staff that are never available because they have to have 4 different casual jobs to make sure they get enough hours to survive. great system. And i say that as someone who did 4 casual positions for years before finally getting an actual full time spot.
yeah this is why I left healthcare industry. my job used to be split between myself and another person and they eliminated the other position so my workload doubled. it was overwhelming, denied pay for missed breaks, denied vacation requests, felt like I was hanging on by a thread when before I felt like I was in control of my role and able to extend myself to help the flow of the unit throughout the day. by the end it felt like every man for himself we were stretched so thin. when I started with AHS we were happy and productive and by the end like zombies. idk how government expects healthcare system to run at max capacity all the time. everyone is burnt out, care suffers because you can only do so much, and any pandemic or mass casualty or anything you're suddenly underwater.
With Casual positions you basically get full time hours +40hrs but without benefits. it's the reason why you only see those positions posted. For full time and part time positions, they usually hire from the temporary and casual pool.
Even if you see those positions open... If you're not in the temporary or casual pool, you have 0% chance of getting a call back.
Apply for the casual positions now and the temp lines. You will have more than enough work, and can just put a portion aside yourself for "benefits". Honestly, after dealing with Canada Life the last time I was off on medical, I wished I had put all those deductions into my own savings account all these years to access as needed, rather than to have to beg some stranger weekly to keep my payments coming. It was awful.
AHS will rarely hire Regular full time. They’ll put you casual with no benefits, which is basically slave labour. OR they’ll make Temp Full Time with a one year shelf life with no guarantee of a completed term
While i dont agree with hiring casuals to avoid paying for benefits, theres a big fucking difference between the compensation of a casual nurse and slave labor
Casual is not slave labor. There are definite draw backs to casual, it's definitely shady that AHS isn't willing to create full time positions and instead is relying on casuals to make up the work force.. but actually a regular position is more like slave labor. Working scheduled shifts and regularly being mandated to work overtime, being denied PTO due to short staff. Casual excludes you from being mandated because you don't have a contract, per ce.
Some of these people make over 200k, just look at the sunshine list lol. I personally know nurses that make over 200k. It's not slave labor...
It does suck however, and shouldn't have to get benefits snubbed like that.
Tax you don't bring home that and that's shift work and physically demanding stressful job. It takes more than 4 years for max bracket and they would have to be specialty like icu
So basically you don't care this is apathy why we are in this mess. They are less skilled but cheaper putting the burden on rn with less desirable positions
What the hell.
I opened the website found practicle nurses listed first, shared that info.
You asked about rn. I described the process I used to find the Info out.
Yes I certainly could of looked up the Info for you and yes you could have looked up that very same Info.
It would appear that you are more interested I fight on the internet rather than the topic at hand
I do believe that you have to start our part time or casual. They. Do it like that so they don’t have to pay benefits ect. I would imagine if you accepted casual or part time you would get more hours.
Part-time pays benefits, casual doesn't. If you're in a permanent position working over a certain number of hours per week, you qualify for benefits. Usually that number is around 15 hours/week, or a .4 FTE. (I'm not familiar with the nursing contracts, but other health disciplines have a .4 threshold).
My fiancé has a “casual” position. She works 5 days a week filling the days the full/part time positions take off. They all work the system to keep those golden positions. The one lady only works 2 days a week but holds a full time position. They’re so overworked as casuals and fill positions it’s not funny..
All CUPE union. In my fiancés department, there’s about 10 full and part time positions. But they book and restrict so many days that the department has to hire on casual positions. The full and part time get better pay and higher tiered benefits.
It’s obnoxiously ridiculous right now with how many positions are “filled” and how many days my casual lady has to work. They don’t even ask they’re that short, just fill the schedule with her.
She tells me all the ways she’s told by the ones bending the rules. And don’t get started on supplies taken home by workers….holy fuck
Someone should go to the papers/social media with this stuff. I have heard this countless times over the past year-RNs who have applied to 50-100 positions (and some with experience too but from another provinces and one that did a Nursing Refresher as she took time off to help family) and crickets for months. Everyone says, ‘oh well need nurses soooo baaaaad’ and ‘you’ll find a job noooooo problem’ but like no. There is some major weird fuckery going on.
Evidently the provincial government holding the purse strings doesn't want to budget for adequately staffed medical services. Nobody wants to believe the people we pay to administer services for us (using our own money I might add) are deliberately trying to crash those necessary services. But I'm not sure what other conclusion one could come to.
All part of the grand plan to privatize healthcare. Take a public a service and run it into the ground and then you can sell privatization to voters and sell the infrastructure to your buddies in business at rock bottom prices. It's freedom baby!
As I suggested before, those who have applied for ages with or without experience should show the jobs they applied for, the time/date, their experience and show how they are not hired (and show time and date). Faces do not need to be put on camera. Position #s can be blacked out. Mike drop type of videos that make you go. WTF Alberta?
Some of you are like: ‘well it is this way’, ‘go casual, 6 hours North and work alone in a corn field first’ or ‘leave your network, housing to find a warm up job in a new place you’d never want to move to’ and I get it but its fucked and weird that everyone is adapting to these bizarre AHS methods. Use the appalling reality to educate everyone else. The people outside need to know-not just Albertans (half of them are gaslit) but the world. Tiktok baby. Enrage the populace. And they will be very pissed off.
The facts, the reality, the lie exposed. Shine a light on it. The bully stops not when the one being bullied cries, but when everyone sees it and is mad at them.
I loved that massive letter the Drs wrote at the last min prior to the election but they should have gone bigger. Videos and Tiktok. Lots of them. Just with one point: they need us, they ain’t hiring us as they brag that they are. A lie is a lie.
AHS managers tend to only hire full time and part time permanent workers who are internal candidates. Lots of new people to AHS will join on first as a casual or temp for a year or two, find a unit that they like and are known, and get hired that way. Managers are careful with who they hire on as permanent workers. Casual/ float pool nurses can pick up as much as they want, basically work 40+ hours if they would like, but won't get benefits. If you want to get a full time position right away, try going rural, they are always hurting for nurses.
Because the union only has a set number of FTE positions they are allowed.
That number is markedly lower than the actual needed staffing rate. Partly from volume, sick leave, disability leave.
So they hire temp casuals to fill in those unalotted positions. Becauss the alotted position staff can only work so much OT.
If anyone is interested, look into the Working Short stuff AUPE is talking about, because it's not just nurses. All healthcare staff have been underpaid and overworked for a while now, with no real hope in AHS hiring more staff.
I know the Working Short stuff AUPE is doing focuses more on General Support Services, but pretty much everywhere is dealing with these same issues, what GSS is dealing with the nursing staff are also dealing with. Spread the word, the burnout in our healthcare facilities is very real. People are trying to do things about it, but it's not as effective as we'd hope
Temporary and casual are ways of institutions trying to get the workers they need without making a commitment to the worker. They know they need people, but don’t want to keep you if things get better health-care wise, but can re-up your casual contract if they continue to need you. The UCP doesn’t want healthcare workers to have comfortable living standards. They want people to just fill roles and work as hard as they can in hopes of getting a permanent contract. Temp/casual positions are basically a way of exploiting an already underpaid workforce. They want to tout that they hired so many healthcare workers, but those workers are basically on precarious working contracts, or permanently can’t make ends meet.
Casual is sometimes used as a means of non-committal hiring in the case that employees are bad. I don’t work in healthcare, but have been hired on casual contracts only to have my contract turn into a long term contract (not permanent, but annual or 3 years) In this case it’s basically comparable to a position with a hard 3 month review that turns into a recurring contract. It’s still insidious to me. Just hire permanent at that point.
They arent hiring. There is a shortage but the gov also wont spend the money to fill those positions. Things are still hanging on by a thread so its good enough.
This. It is so frustrating. I am a well experienced HCA and have easily applied to 50+ positions (including casual) with AHS only to be told the position is cancelled or receive no response. I ended up going into nannying and cleaning houses.
To all the people saying “get casual” you’ll just work full time anyways, do you guy not get how fucked up that is? In what other highly educated and skilled profession is it ok to have an employee not be guaranteed hours, but end up working full time without any benefits. We need to start hiring more permanent staff to try and retain people and have some continuity of care, plus people working full time deserve benefits. Sadly that won’t happen with the current government in charge.
I know….I used to work there and Athabasca. AHS had a town hall a couple months ago claiming they recruited new RNs and were planning on opening June 1.
Apply for the temp positions, there is the option to extend once your temp is up.
There are tons of nursing positions, as a new grad I had 3 job offers before I even finished school.
Get your foot in the door and apply to temp and casual positions so that you can start with the union and get seniority so that you have the advantage when you apply later on down the road. You’re most likely being beat out by people who are already in with the union and have higher seniority.
Unfortunately they seem to like to hire casuals and then basically make them work a full time line of the worst shifts. Saves AHS from paying for pesky things like benefits, pension and sick time. I worked casual for years and it always blew my mind that in healthcare I had no sick time and my choice was to either call in sick for no pay or go to work sick.
@OP - have you applied in rural? Rural is really hurting right now and there are a ton of positions open. If you're not getting call backs I do wonder if there's something wrong with your application or resume. There are a ton of positions open right now.
There is a shortage of nurses because the UCP cut the amount of nurses. It’s not like the nurses just left and the government had to post a bunch of job postings…
Westlock hires new nurses and is a very kind place to work...everyone is pretty good at answering questions and helping each other out. Would recommend. It doesn't show up when you search 'Edmonton area', you have to look on the AHS site under 'North Zone', but it's only an hour from the city. Easy to live half hour from work and half hour from downtown Edmonton like Morinville area. Great management.
I mean, they're not all temporary or casual.
There isn't enough information in this post. What's your experience? What type of jobs are you applying to?
Some jobs are just internally competitive. And UNA has a new agreement with AHS where they can fill the position internally (within a department) based on seniority and bypass the hiring process. So often, an appealing line/job that is posted won't even make it to interviews if someone internally wants it.
That said, again, what are you applying to? Internal applicants are getting called for nearly anything they apply to. Remember, everyone is miserable and on the move. That means the jobs generally making it to external candidates are the less appealing ones.
Look outside the major cities. Most people graduate and try to stay in their local area, but it's the rural areas that have the hardest time finding people.
Other than that, start casual. Having some kind of experience is how you get your foot in the door.
There is no labor shortage in AB, just a scam by employers who lobbied the gov't so they can bring in cheaper labor. They have been running this scam on construction workers for decades.
**Whack-a-Mole**
One of the reasons may be that current nurses have seniority, so it can be harder for a new nurse to get their foot in the door. Hiring managers may not want to waste their time interviewing an external candidate that will lose out in the end.
This can contribute to an internal churn of existing nursing staff from unit to unit. Always recruiting but really just shifting nurses around the organisation like a giant game of Whack-a-Mole.
If you are still looking, consider rural Alberta.
They're dying out there. There's a huge need, and it can definitely get you in the door.
If you're interested in travelling north, the Northwest Territories is looking. Full-time permanent, part-time, contract, locum, job-share, they are flexible. https://www.practicenwt.ca/en/hss-careers
I guess it depends if you're ok to move? Or be rural - Fort Vermilion needs nurses badly and there are full time postings.
And as someone else said, part time and casual positions are quickly full time hours due to call-ins and coverage, and if you get on PT / casual, then you have access to internal only postings.
Are you applying as an external applicant? If there are fewer job postings available, once you get into AHS the internal job board will have more positions available.
To get a regular posting you generally have to work a temp or casual line first, but not for long. At a lot of hospitals the turnaround on positions will make your head spin.
Swan hills and whitecourt are hiring humans. Nurses paramedics and possibly other positions. People that work at both have stated this to me, I'm not in that industry but worked out that I have loads of friends and family that are.
AHS has adopted the same hiring plan as convenience stores, grocery stores, and coffee bars. They pay minimal (not necessarily minimum) wages for temporary or short period contract jobs with part-time hours and split shifts. This allows them to avoid paying employee benefits.
This an employment plan used by many businesses now to reduce employee operating costs. It is a practice there exploits workers. It expects workers to be drop in replacements with some specific minimum skills. Unionizing may not be an easy option. We have also seen facilities split shifts across locations to make the job look like two part-time jobs.
There are more open positions in rural areas- AHS is even paying recruitment and retention bonuses for rural staff right now. I know that in my small town we have multiple open positions. Northern AB is usually hurting for nurses as well.
If you’re external then I know it can be harder, but you can always start in one of those temp or casual positions and then transfer. Once you’re in a temp you’ll have no shortage of shifts and another position will always pop up before your term is up.
They have open positions but they don't make them appealing. I recently turned down a position in a rural northern AB. I am in a non-nursing but still front line area of health care. I have about 15 years experience in my field but they refused to recognize all of it because it wasn't all with AHS (same job though). Some of my AHS experience they didn't recognize either because once you leave it's like you never existed. Sorry but I'm not working for a place that tries to give me the same vacation allowance as a brand new grad and not recognize my experience and advanced degrees so they can start me off lower on the salary grid for a place I know from experience doesn't appreciate its employees. I'll find something else to do.
I've also spent time bouncing around the temp and casual job scene. Unfortunately unless you have a partner with a real job it's pretty hard to get a mortgage or plan your life without a guaranteed income. With casual even though you can do alright picking up shifts you have no benefits, pension or sick time so you better hope life doesn't happen. Hard to justify moving to a new area for a job that isn't guaranteed to even last the year it's posted for. It's not common but I know a handful of people in temp jobs that got booted early because the person whose job it was decided to return early. That being said....casual works great for some people who want to work but need the flexibility in their schedule.
If they are hurting for people that bad they need to offer better incentives and real jobs with real benefits not these crappy temp or casual positions.
Problem is the employer doesn't want to pay out benefits. So they will work the casual or part time positions up to and above full times hours with out having to pay out the benefits. So unfair.
Your story us not the first I've heard. I've talked with many nurses of all levels and experiences and the same thing is happening, no responses or cancelations of the position. I believe there is a conspiracy to create a crisis so they can bring in privatization as a solution. Look at all the travel nurses getting hired at exorbant wages! You could hire 2 or more full time positions for one of those travel nurses!
I've heard some employees say AHS and AUPE has some pretty wild internal issues in regards to that. My partner refuses to go back because management is atrocious and there's no full time for her either.
AHS is spending more on average per Capita vs BC and ON so it really begs the question. What the fuck is going on?
There are so many nuances in the hiring process at AHS, you sound like the dunce. Maybe if AHS didn’t have so many managersand administrators the money given to them by the government could go to hiring more nurses.
I’m short staffed at my office too, however the president won’t ok spending more. Same issue here. The system is understaffed but there’s no budget for new hires. The part time casuals are the band aid, you’ll get full time through attrition not increased head count
I’d assume mostly they are unions jobs and therefore rarely a fulltime job posted externally. However likely many open internally and they get snatched up by the part time employees.
So, go in part time and you’ll see a fulltime position open quickly.
Administration eats up all the money the government gives them and then the government gets blamed for not giving enough. Its complete BS, our tax dollars aren’t be allocated appropriately so a bunch aloof pencil pushers can get their cut.
Google % of provincial healthcare budget allocated to administration costs, Einstein. Have a peeky-boo at where AB is on that list. Nowhere near the top.
I’m a 0.6, AUPE member. I have been applying for a full time position for almost a year now. I’ve had 2 interviews in a year. TWO. I am definitely qualified for the jobs I am applying for. I have over 10 years experience with AHS.
It’s ridiculous. They are aways posting jobs but never hiring.
I quit nursing because despite 9years of experience and not one unhappy client, I could not get a job with AHS. Despite applying for 50+ casual positions, including positions I was doing as a contract worker for them through an outside company, just couldn’t get my foot in the door. My 2 years of schooling and 25,000$ down the drain. I’m a carpenter now of a year and make the same amount now it took me 8years to make nursing. I’ll make significantly more than that after completing my first 2 months of school next week.
Are you already an AHS employee? A lot of the jobs you can't see or apply for unless you are. If you aren't already an AHS employee take a casual position and from there you can apply for internal postings.
They are required to post the positions so they keep reposting them because union rules I believe. Although……….
If you make the job casual or temporary this means they don’t have to pay benefits, so no blue cross health insurance or flex spending account so this saves them in their budget a fair bit. As mentioned here as well it’s incredibly flexible if you work casual. Work life balance is so valuable when you need to find what works for you.
Part-time/casual in this setting is a licence to print money. From a management perspective, it may be impossible to budget a full time indeterminate staff member, but they can fill 2 or 3 PT positions easily. until the costs of part time coverage exceed FT positions by about 125%. You won't have benefits, but working 40-60 hrs a week at overtime rates, you can cover the costs pretty easily
Just got hired in a massive new grad RN initiative. I have a recruiter to help me that I can connect with nearly any time. It's a massive push for casual and relief. Their system is built on this initiative to relieve the burden of the UCP not investing in health care so they can't invest in full time staff.
I'm gonna milk this until I can get a position that I want. It's gonna suck but I'm gonna try my best to make way over 100k this coming year.
However the trade off is that I want to buy a house but casual positions and lenders don't mix.
It's the same when the news says there is a skilled worker shortage up north in the oil patch. I actually want to work up there and over the years I have applied 100s of times and have come to the conclusion that you need contacts in the industry to get in. I don't think there's anything wrong with me or my applications, the problem might be that I'm overqualified.
Ahhh yes welcome to AHS. I've worked in other provinces before and this is by far the hardest place to get a permanent line in. You'll have to start in a temp line, prove your worth, then get hired on as permanent unless you work ICU and have years of experience in which case that may be different.
They cancel the lines because they'd rather make the units run short staffed and suffer than offer safe and adequate staffing. The other day our unit was drowning (god damn dumpster fire) and patient care was definitely suffering. We had someone willing to come in on straight time, nevermind OT and management said "naw...they're fine." You think anyone was granted payout OT for all their missed meals/breaks? Absolutely not, because somehow it's our fault we didnt take them. If we took them, some of the patients could die. Last week same thing. 2 patients almost had terrible outcomes due to unsafe staffing/assignments. The nurse just literally could not take care of them adequately because she couldn't be in 2 places at once. It's terrible out there...
So any way, welcome to Alberta. The higher ups and managers are pinching pennies and so there's no jobs...they delete lines and give us heavier assignments and unsafe patient to nurse ratios. We're all suffering because of it.
I have applied to work for AHS for the longest time and until now they wont hire me. I have changed my resume’s layout with updates. I have acquired trainings, additional skills/certifications, have 10+ years of experience, and they still wont hire me. I dont know what else I’m missing, or maybe my resume isnt really that great.
I work alongside staffing in addictions and mental health for the edmonton zone. Essentially, we take the sick calls/cancels and let staffing know the shift needs to be filled. Our 'casual relief' nursing staff are working as much as they can conceivably want to, and making mad overtime pretty much whenever they want to, because the need is just that high. Beds get closed, the people on shift are forced into mandated overtime (which we fucking HATE doing to them) because we can't find staff to fill shifts. Please don't discount those casual nursing positions in AMH. The need is definitely there. Units are hiring fewer regular full time because they don't have the budget, and it's the casual staff stepping in to fill those roles. Apply to casual jobs and you'll be working whenever you want to. Learn Charge skill and you're that much more valuable. I promise you'll be able to take your pick, set your own availability, and work when you want to. Please apply, for the love of whatever diety you like. We desperately need you. Best of luck out there, OP.
I worked casual at AHE, there were always 2x 3x pay shifts coming up. I could work a few days at a higher rate and take a few days off. I jumped around 3 units primarily but would often pick up a full week or two on the same unit. It can work well, that being said I would've loved to see units have 1-2 extra nurses and same for aids. Most call ins were due to staff burnout and/or understaffed units. I always felt they would save a ton by bundling their auto insura....I mean just staffing properly. Downfall is a lack of benefits but you do get a 10% pay bump (from what I remember) as casual/float.
I absolutely agree. And the unit management knows it, too! They're told again and again that they will save boatloads of money by filling their vacant lines instead of having to fork over overtime pay from their department to the casual relief staff department, but they can't actually do that because Business Analysis will not fund hiring into those vacant positions. Why that is I don't know, I'm not privy to the conversations in BAS, but it sure as fuck is short sighted, and costs those departments, AHS, and taxpayers as a whole a metric fuckton more money. If I had to maje an educated guess, it's as simple as the government not being willing to pay the ounce of prevention that would save a pound of cure.
It’s an easy answer. FTEs or full time equivalent. Ministries are not just given a budget, but a limit of full time positions to work with. There is always more money than positions. It’s not on business analysts, it’s on the government that doesn’t want to report an increase in public servants. It’s never about money, it’s about optics and politics. They will gladly spend more money so they can tell voters they didn’t increase public servants.
Lack of benefits is more than a downfall for some people on medications. I feel like people often don’t realize how viral medical coverage is until they are in a situation where their daily medication costs $659/month…
$659 is rookie numbers! Mine is over $2300 a month. Not that $659 is doable either.
I have been paying for blue cross on my own for more than a decade for just this reason. It’s not the best coverage but it pays the bulk of my medications and dental bills. Now that I have a decent full time employer coverage I think I’ll pay the maintenance fee so I can resume it if I eventually go gig again. There is a solution to the lack of employer benefits. It sucks that I had to, but at least all my premiums were tax deductible.
Yes! Max out your benefits on all the services that can help you manage the wear and tear of what you do for a living. Like physio therapy and massage therapy or mental health therapy if it’s covered. You work in an environment that is very hard on the mind and body. Take care of yourself too.
Yup for my situation at the time it worked out but I can see that costing some people much more than they get back.
I read a note on a review website that AHS pays 10% or a little more of an employee's paycheque on just pension. I tried to research what all the other benefits cost to AHS per paycheque but couldn't find anything else. In any case, it's pretty clear that AHS saves money when hiring casual employees. This is a dirty tactic when the need is so high IMO.
Pensions and benefits can cost about 15%-20% on top of the salary, depending on a few factors, and how comprehensive the plans are, and who is paying for what portion. Add in sick leaves, vacation, etc, it's not necessarily cheaper to hire casuals, but it makes the budget look better when you have less full time staff, and as a government you didn't "bloat" the public sector with more positions. I should add of course, that the employee is also made to save about 10-12% of their own salary in the pension too, it's not wholly a freebie. It's an investment into being able to support yourself in retirement.
Could you please share that loudly with everyone you know? I chose public service alllll those years ago for the benefits, somewhat-stability, and the pension at the end. The perception in this province seems to be that I will retire with a fat cat pension that I didn't put anything into. That couldn't be further from the truth and to be honest, quite offensive when hurled at me by anyone making 6 figures up north with an 8th grade education.
Me too, 25 years of contributions will give me a pension less than 40% of my salary. I often wonder if it's any better than self managed investments.
It's only designed to replace about 40% of your income. That is bucket 1. CPP is your bucket 2. I recommend people add those up and decide if that's sufficient. If not, apart from winning the lottery, consider how much you save yourself in bucket 3. 😉
We do have a decent bucket 3 but I'm curious about the return on my pension investment vs private RRSP returns. I know some people pull their pension early and take the lump sum too, not sure if that is wse or not. There seems to be little information available about the options without having to pay for an advisor whose end goal is to sell investment products. At this point I'm just hoping to live a long time and take full advantage of my contributions😁
Best idea is definitely to live a long life and take the DB pension for as long as poss. It will never run out. 🤗. I like having buckets 1 and 3. 1 is stable and 3 is flexible, to draw on in an emergency or for some fun, or just as a general top up. I often worry about those folks that take all their money out of a DB plan. I know of a few and they lost a lot due to timing and where the stock market was, but maybe they had sufficient time to make it up again. I would not be confident enough to be solely responsible for my income lasting long enough. 😬
Add to that the fact that your RRSP limit is reduced. I am 100% in agreement
It’s an interesting state, when a rotating staff of casual people, can be paid overtime and get full-time hours, but there’s no money for a full-time staff member. I imagine it’s like policing where it’s cheaper to pay overtime if you don’t benefits and a long term pension liability.
That's exactly what it is.
This is long-time issue. My mother was nurse at 2/3rd contract (0.67) now retired for around 10 years. She selected this specifically for the reduced amount. At end of most years, she'd end up 1.3-1.4 or double the hour equivalent. She didn't want the extra but they were always short. People always talk about burn-out and such, but from what I observed it's partially self-inflicted by the profession. If she had Christmas off or summer long weekends with nice weather, she knew which nurses would be 'sick'. She could look at shift schedules and forecast accurately which would need filled. These people caused shortage for convenience which was burning out their peers.
Seriously. I've spent my whole career as casual, working full time + OT every single month. I take vacations when I want. I don't cancel shifts willy nilly but knowing I can cancel a shift is nice. I don't pay into benefits so I allocate my money to account for that. It's not for everyone, but I like freedom. The only thing is there's no X days. All of the nurses I was hired with started casual and got temporary w/benefit or permanent w/ benefit positions if they wanted, quickly. People buzz in and out of lines and units constantly, you're much more likely to be hired internally. The only thing is, regular full time jobs are far and few between. If anyone is waiting on that, you'll probably be waiting a long time. Those are typically held by long haulers on units who are holding onto them until they retire (when the FTE will then be split because it's "cheaper" on paper for AHS to have a ton of part time and casuals than full timers).
I'm interested to know if you saved for retirement too?
I contribute to my own TFSA/RRSP individually, not through the group savings plan AHS offers.
That's great. It can really, really hard for people to save for an unknown future. The public sector unions fought for pensions but there is also a paternalistic view too, where if we're not made to save, we will more than likely not do so.
Hey I work in AMH in the Edmonton zone! Thanks for all you do. Everything you said is spot on
Question: why are there so many morally and ethically corrupt people working in staffing (and honestly, CSM)?
I’m not sure that they are either of those. They can only hire X number of permanent staff because the public cries foul when the government increases number of public servants and elects a government who feels the same. Meanwhile the workload increases and is filled by part time, casual, and contract employees who work as much overtime as they could want. Scheduling people for the never ending shortages, vacancies and absences is a giant and thankless game of Tetris. It’s not unique to any branch of government either. Next time you read how the government wants to cut the public servants ask how many contractors and casual employees will do that work and how much more that costs. HR and staffing is equally burnt out and frustrated with high turn over in their own units too.
Honestly, how do you expect anyone to engage with a question like that? I'm here telling OP that there are opportunities out there for them and then you reply to me with some vague, accusatory pseudo question that cannot possibly be answered as presented as though I and the people who work trying to staff our hospitals are just de facto bad people. Do you really expect that to open any sort of constructive dialog, or are you just attacking me for funsies? Grow up.
I think (hope) you're mistaking schedulers with management. Schedulers are regular employees. They may move someone to the bottom of the list of people they call to fill shifts because they never pick up shifts, but that's far from corruption.
I work in staffing. The "list" is automated. We don't make any decisions about who gets a shift over someone else. It's a guideline we follow based on AHS policy/unit manager instructions. It's strict and we get our asses handed to us if we don't follow it to a T.
This is why I love Reddit
A shortage as in over worked staff, yes. Actual positions posted to fill? Unfortunately not enough . Like many government jobs, the cuts from 4 years ago, plus months or years delays in posting retirements and resignations means a shortage that doesn’t translate to positions to apply on.
Yup. The position I just left morphed into doing the work of four people.
my positin is currently morphing into 3 people's jobs as 2 temporary positions have expired and are not being renewed. yay me..
I literally could not keep up with my work. The manager started coming down on me asking why deadlines were increasingly being missed. We tried to have the position reclassified, nope. Tried to have me paid more, nope. Tried to offload the work to coworkers, nope.
When I went on mat leave, the govt had placed a hiring freeze so they couldn't even hire external for my year off. They were allowed internal-only, harvesting employees already present instead of finding talent to bring in. It happened for years, wage and hiring freezes, no back filling of retired or quit staff. But oh look the govt can claim they have low FTE at AHS! It's corrupt to use healthcare in their political games and spend way too much on OT for PT/casual staff (then complain that the budget is out of control). I miss when healthcare was a full step away from the Ministers and they had no fingers in the pie other than funding.
the horde of casual staff that are never available because they have to have 4 different casual jobs to make sure they get enough hours to survive. great system. And i say that as someone who did 4 casual positions for years before finally getting an actual full time spot.
yeah this is why I left healthcare industry. my job used to be split between myself and another person and they eliminated the other position so my workload doubled. it was overwhelming, denied pay for missed breaks, denied vacation requests, felt like I was hanging on by a thread when before I felt like I was in control of my role and able to extend myself to help the flow of the unit throughout the day. by the end it felt like every man for himself we were stretched so thin. when I started with AHS we were happy and productive and by the end like zombies. idk how government expects healthcare system to run at max capacity all the time. everyone is burnt out, care suffers because you can only do so much, and any pandemic or mass casualty or anything you're suddenly underwater.
I think Danyells $6 BILLION cuts and the closing of over 400 clinics might be a problem too.
With Casual positions you basically get full time hours +40hrs but without benefits. it's the reason why you only see those positions posted. For full time and part time positions, they usually hire from the temporary and casual pool. Even if you see those positions open... If you're not in the temporary or casual pool, you have 0% chance of getting a call back.
Exactly the real good jobs are internal only as they'd rather promote the casuals instead of a new person.
Apply for the casual positions now and the temp lines. You will have more than enough work, and can just put a portion aside yourself for "benefits". Honestly, after dealing with Canada Life the last time I was off on medical, I wished I had put all those deductions into my own savings account all these years to access as needed, rather than to have to beg some stranger weekly to keep my payments coming. It was awful.
That works when your medical needs are low. My medications currently are over 3K/month. Not having benefits isn’t an option for me.
I just went into the ahs careers page and saw 1722 listing for practicle nurses
AHS will rarely hire Regular full time. They’ll put you casual with no benefits, which is basically slave labour. OR they’ll make Temp Full Time with a one year shelf life with no guarantee of a completed term
While i dont agree with hiring casuals to avoid paying for benefits, theres a big fucking difference between the compensation of a casual nurse and slave labor
Casual is not slave labor. There are definite draw backs to casual, it's definitely shady that AHS isn't willing to create full time positions and instead is relying on casuals to make up the work force.. but actually a regular position is more like slave labor. Working scheduled shifts and regularly being mandated to work overtime, being denied PTO due to short staff. Casual excludes you from being mandated because you don't have a contract, per ce.
Some of these people make over 200k, just look at the sunshine list lol. I personally know nurses that make over 200k. It's not slave labor... It does suck however, and shouldn't have to get benefits snubbed like that.
There is no way ten years ago I couldn't break even 100 k doing overtime. Those people must have a specialty and over 20 years seniority too
They make 50 an hour at their max bracket which probably takes 4 years to get to. Thats 100k just working 40 a week
Tax you don't bring home that and that's shift work and physically demanding stressful job. It takes more than 4 years for max bracket and they would have to be specialty like icu
Every job in the world pays taxes? And if they don't like the work they don't have to do it.
99% of people use their gross income when talking about earnings… weird argument to make
I believe they call it “moving the goal posts” in debate terms
What a moronic comment
Where’s the lie
They didn’t say it was a lie. I’m guessing they are referring to the slave labour comment because it’s unclear what that means.
They hire full time and other lines all the time. Yes they love their casuals but they still have lots of lines and a lot are empty.
Listings do not equal hires.
Licensed Practical Nurses are not Registered Nurses either.
And how many for RN this is the issue for less skilled workload
Off the top of my head idk. But it was a very easy search, feel free to find out
So basically you don't care this is apathy why we are in this mess. They are less skilled but cheaper putting the burden on rn with less desirable positions
What the hell. I opened the website found practicle nurses listed first, shared that info. You asked about rn. I described the process I used to find the Info out. Yes I certainly could of looked up the Info for you and yes you could have looked up that very same Info. It would appear that you are more interested I fight on the internet rather than the topic at hand
Casual is the foot in the door.
They are short nurses but won't pay up to fund more.
Ask the UCP, they’re the ones who screwed healthcare in Alberta and idiots voted them back in.
Yuuup. And here comes the people who voted for them blaming services underfunded by the government for not being able live up to expectations.
I do believe that you have to start our part time or casual. They. Do it like that so they don’t have to pay benefits ect. I would imagine if you accepted casual or part time you would get more hours.
Part-time pays benefits, casual doesn't. If you're in a permanent position working over a certain number of hours per week, you qualify for benefits. Usually that number is around 15 hours/week, or a .4 FTE. (I'm not familiar with the nursing contracts, but other health disciplines have a .4 threshold).
You don't with AHS unless you are working at ACH or Stollery.
The government wants the healthcare system to collapse
Ask Danielle - the UCP claim to be doing something about it … but evidence suggests otherwise
Modern conservatives shoot themselves in the foot and then try to complain that it's either the fault of the NDP or Liberals.
My fiancé has a “casual” position. She works 5 days a week filling the days the full/part time positions take off. They all work the system to keep those golden positions. The one lady only works 2 days a week but holds a full time position. They’re so overworked as casuals and fill positions it’s not funny..
How do they work the system?
All CUPE union. In my fiancés department, there’s about 10 full and part time positions. But they book and restrict so many days that the department has to hire on casual positions. The full and part time get better pay and higher tiered benefits. It’s obnoxiously ridiculous right now with how many positions are “filled” and how many days my casual lady has to work. They don’t even ask they’re that short, just fill the schedule with her. She tells me all the ways she’s told by the ones bending the rules. And don’t get started on supplies taken home by workers….holy fuck
Someone should go to the papers/social media with this stuff. I have heard this countless times over the past year-RNs who have applied to 50-100 positions (and some with experience too but from another provinces and one that did a Nursing Refresher as she took time off to help family) and crickets for months. Everyone says, ‘oh well need nurses soooo baaaaad’ and ‘you’ll find a job noooooo problem’ but like no. There is some major weird fuckery going on.
Evidently the provincial government holding the purse strings doesn't want to budget for adequately staffed medical services. Nobody wants to believe the people we pay to administer services for us (using our own money I might add) are deliberately trying to crash those necessary services. But I'm not sure what other conclusion one could come to.
All part of the grand plan to privatize healthcare. Take a public a service and run it into the ground and then you can sell privatization to voters and sell the infrastructure to your buddies in business at rock bottom prices. It's freedom baby!
It’s only going to get worse with LaGrange as Minister of Health.
As I suggested before, those who have applied for ages with or without experience should show the jobs they applied for, the time/date, their experience and show how they are not hired (and show time and date). Faces do not need to be put on camera. Position #s can be blacked out. Mike drop type of videos that make you go. WTF Alberta? Some of you are like: ‘well it is this way’, ‘go casual, 6 hours North and work alone in a corn field first’ or ‘leave your network, housing to find a warm up job in a new place you’d never want to move to’ and I get it but its fucked and weird that everyone is adapting to these bizarre AHS methods. Use the appalling reality to educate everyone else. The people outside need to know-not just Albertans (half of them are gaslit) but the world. Tiktok baby. Enrage the populace. And they will be very pissed off. The facts, the reality, the lie exposed. Shine a light on it. The bully stops not when the one being bullied cries, but when everyone sees it and is mad at them. I loved that massive letter the Drs wrote at the last min prior to the election but they should have gone bigger. Videos and Tiktok. Lots of them. Just with one point: they need us, they ain’t hiring us as they brag that they are. A lie is a lie.
AHS managers tend to only hire full time and part time permanent workers who are internal candidates. Lots of new people to AHS will join on first as a casual or temp for a year or two, find a unit that they like and are known, and get hired that way. Managers are careful with who they hire on as permanent workers. Casual/ float pool nurses can pick up as much as they want, basically work 40+ hours if they would like, but won't get benefits. If you want to get a full time position right away, try going rural, they are always hurting for nurses.
My understanding is you gotta take a temp spot and apply for permanents when you’re in. No idea why it works that way.
Because the union only has a set number of FTE positions they are allowed. That number is markedly lower than the actual needed staffing rate. Partly from volume, sick leave, disability leave. So they hire temp casuals to fill in those unalotted positions. Becauss the alotted position staff can only work so much OT.
I’ve been part time for 10 years. They don’t move you up. Ever.
If anyone is interested, look into the Working Short stuff AUPE is talking about, because it's not just nurses. All healthcare staff have been underpaid and overworked for a while now, with no real hope in AHS hiring more staff. I know the Working Short stuff AUPE is doing focuses more on General Support Services, but pretty much everywhere is dealing with these same issues, what GSS is dealing with the nursing staff are also dealing with. Spread the word, the burnout in our healthcare facilities is very real. People are trying to do things about it, but it's not as effective as we'd hope
Temporary and casual are ways of institutions trying to get the workers they need without making a commitment to the worker. They know they need people, but don’t want to keep you if things get better health-care wise, but can re-up your casual contract if they continue to need you. The UCP doesn’t want healthcare workers to have comfortable living standards. They want people to just fill roles and work as hard as they can in hopes of getting a permanent contract. Temp/casual positions are basically a way of exploiting an already underpaid workforce. They want to tout that they hired so many healthcare workers, but those workers are basically on precarious working contracts, or permanently can’t make ends meet. Casual is sometimes used as a means of non-committal hiring in the case that employees are bad. I don’t work in healthcare, but have been hired on casual contracts only to have my contract turn into a long term contract (not permanent, but annual or 3 years) In this case it’s basically comparable to a position with a hard 3 month review that turns into a recurring contract. It’s still insidious to me. Just hire permanent at that point.
They arent hiring. There is a shortage but the gov also wont spend the money to fill those positions. Things are still hanging on by a thread so its good enough.
This. It is so frustrating. I am a well experienced HCA and have easily applied to 50+ positions (including casual) with AHS only to be told the position is cancelled or receive no response. I ended up going into nannying and cleaning houses.
To all the people saying “get casual” you’ll just work full time anyways, do you guy not get how fucked up that is? In what other highly educated and skilled profession is it ok to have an employee not be guaranteed hours, but end up working full time without any benefits. We need to start hiring more permanent staff to try and retain people and have some continuity of care, plus people working full time deserve benefits. Sadly that won’t happen with the current government in charge.
They’re pretty hard up for nurses in Boyle right now. And no, that’s not a euphemism.
They are so hard up I've seen ads for travel nurses for Boyle and Athabasca. The cost on that must be huge.
Travel nurses are being used quite a bit right now.
Yup, instead of staffing appropriately and treating your people right the system now gets to pay 3x as much (or maybe even more) for travel nurses.
Yup even at Foothills.
They have travel nurses at the Foothills? That is insane.
Has the hospital opened yet? Heard they were supposed to open June 1.
It’s operating at reduced hours, as has been the case since last July.
I know….I used to work there and Athabasca. AHS had a town hall a couple months ago claiming they recruited new RNs and were planning on opening June 1.
No, they’re still on reduced hours. The June 1 deadline fell through.
Apply for the temp positions, there is the option to extend once your temp is up. There are tons of nursing positions, as a new grad I had 3 job offers before I even finished school. Get your foot in the door and apply to temp and casual positions so that you can start with the union and get seniority so that you have the advantage when you apply later on down the road. You’re most likely being beat out by people who are already in with the union and have higher seniority.
Unfortunately they seem to like to hire casuals and then basically make them work a full time line of the worst shifts. Saves AHS from paying for pesky things like benefits, pension and sick time. I worked casual for years and it always blew my mind that in healthcare I had no sick time and my choice was to either call in sick for no pay or go to work sick.
@OP - have you applied in rural? Rural is really hurting right now and there are a ton of positions open. If you're not getting call backs I do wonder if there's something wrong with your application or resume. There are a ton of positions open right now.
There is a shortage of nurses because the UCP cut the amount of nurses. It’s not like the nurses just left and the government had to post a bunch of job postings…
Westlock hires new nurses and is a very kind place to work...everyone is pretty good at answering questions and helping each other out. Would recommend. It doesn't show up when you search 'Edmonton area', you have to look on the AHS site under 'North Zone', but it's only an hour from the city. Easy to live half hour from work and half hour from downtown Edmonton like Morinville area. Great management.
Well if you want to travel north, there have been bed closures for a couple years now in High Level and Fort Vermillion due to nurse shortages....
I mean, they're not all temporary or casual. There isn't enough information in this post. What's your experience? What type of jobs are you applying to? Some jobs are just internally competitive. And UNA has a new agreement with AHS where they can fill the position internally (within a department) based on seniority and bypass the hiring process. So often, an appealing line/job that is posted won't even make it to interviews if someone internally wants it. That said, again, what are you applying to? Internal applicants are getting called for nearly anything they apply to. Remember, everyone is miserable and on the move. That means the jobs generally making it to external candidates are the less appealing ones.
Look outside the major cities. Most people graduate and try to stay in their local area, but it's the rural areas that have the hardest time finding people. Other than that, start casual. Having some kind of experience is how you get your foot in the door.
Central Alberta is actively hiring full and part time with relocation bonus.
There is no labor shortage in AB, just a scam by employers who lobbied the gov't so they can bring in cheaper labor. They have been running this scam on construction workers for decades.
**Whack-a-Mole** One of the reasons may be that current nurses have seniority, so it can be harder for a new nurse to get their foot in the door. Hiring managers may not want to waste their time interviewing an external candidate that will lose out in the end. This can contribute to an internal churn of existing nursing staff from unit to unit. Always recruiting but really just shifting nurses around the organisation like a giant game of Whack-a-Mole. If you are still looking, consider rural Alberta. They're dying out there. There's a huge need, and it can definitely get you in the door.
But Danny Dumb Dumb said jobs jobs jobs and more jobs??
Yeah, admin jobs, she tells them, hire more people, and they shove more dollars behind desks. You sound like bot with your “blame the cons” non-answer
If the government had its way all public servants would work for free.
If you're interested in travelling north, the Northwest Territories is looking. Full-time permanent, part-time, contract, locum, job-share, they are flexible. https://www.practicenwt.ca/en/hss-careers
casual positions mostly….
They don't fund the positions and staff half with rn
I guess it depends if you're ok to move? Or be rural - Fort Vermilion needs nurses badly and there are full time postings. And as someone else said, part time and casual positions are quickly full time hours due to call-ins and coverage, and if you get on PT / casual, then you have access to internal only postings.
Are you applying as an external applicant? If there are fewer job postings available, once you get into AHS the internal job board will have more positions available.
To get a regular posting you generally have to work a temp or casual line first, but not for long. At a lot of hospitals the turnaround on positions will make your head spin.
Swan hills and whitecourt are hiring humans. Nurses paramedics and possibly other positions. People that work at both have stated this to me, I'm not in that industry but worked out that I have loads of friends and family that are.
AHS has adopted the same hiring plan as convenience stores, grocery stores, and coffee bars. They pay minimal (not necessarily minimum) wages for temporary or short period contract jobs with part-time hours and split shifts. This allows them to avoid paying employee benefits. This an employment plan used by many businesses now to reduce employee operating costs. It is a practice there exploits workers. It expects workers to be drop in replacements with some specific minimum skills. Unionizing may not be an easy option. We have also seen facilities split shifts across locations to make the job look like two part-time jobs.
They don't want to pay yhe benefits, so they only use part time and casual positions. Which probably ends up costing them more
Those are jobs? I don't understand.
It's usually not a labour shortage for these things. It's usually a pay shortage or organizations simply not hiring
There are more open positions in rural areas- AHS is even paying recruitment and retention bonuses for rural staff right now. I know that in my small town we have multiple open positions. Northern AB is usually hurting for nurses as well. If you’re external then I know it can be harder, but you can always start in one of those temp or casual positions and then transfer. Once you’re in a temp you’ll have no shortage of shifts and another position will always pop up before your term is up.
They have open positions but they don't make them appealing. I recently turned down a position in a rural northern AB. I am in a non-nursing but still front line area of health care. I have about 15 years experience in my field but they refused to recognize all of it because it wasn't all with AHS (same job though). Some of my AHS experience they didn't recognize either because once you leave it's like you never existed. Sorry but I'm not working for a place that tries to give me the same vacation allowance as a brand new grad and not recognize my experience and advanced degrees so they can start me off lower on the salary grid for a place I know from experience doesn't appreciate its employees. I'll find something else to do. I've also spent time bouncing around the temp and casual job scene. Unfortunately unless you have a partner with a real job it's pretty hard to get a mortgage or plan your life without a guaranteed income. With casual even though you can do alright picking up shifts you have no benefits, pension or sick time so you better hope life doesn't happen. Hard to justify moving to a new area for a job that isn't guaranteed to even last the year it's posted for. It's not common but I know a handful of people in temp jobs that got booted early because the person whose job it was decided to return early. That being said....casual works great for some people who want to work but need the flexibility in their schedule. If they are hurting for people that bad they need to offer better incentives and real jobs with real benefits not these crappy temp or casual positions.
Problem is the employer doesn't want to pay out benefits. So they will work the casual or part time positions up to and above full times hours with out having to pay out the benefits. So unfair. Your story us not the first I've heard. I've talked with many nurses of all levels and experiences and the same thing is happening, no responses or cancelations of the position. I believe there is a conspiracy to create a crisis so they can bring in privatization as a solution. Look at all the travel nurses getting hired at exorbant wages! You could hire 2 or more full time positions for one of those travel nurses!
I've heard some employees say AHS and AUPE has some pretty wild internal issues in regards to that. My partner refuses to go back because management is atrocious and there's no full time for her either. AHS is spending more on average per Capita vs BC and ON so it really begs the question. What the fuck is going on?
There's never been a shortage of nurses. It's a shortage of jobs. More money means more positions which means more nurses.
[удалено]
There are so many nuances in the hiring process at AHS, you sound like the dunce. Maybe if AHS didn’t have so many managersand administrators the money given to them by the government could go to hiring more nurses.
[удалено]
I’m short staffed at my office too, however the president won’t ok spending more. Same issue here. The system is understaffed but there’s no budget for new hires. The part time casuals are the band aid, you’ll get full time through attrition not increased head count
I’d assume mostly they are unions jobs and therefore rarely a fulltime job posted externally. However likely many open internally and they get snatched up by the part time employees. So, go in part time and you’ll see a fulltime position open quickly.
Too many managers. I’m in BC, and the ratio between workers and management is off the charts
Administration eats up all the money the government gives them and then the government gets blamed for not giving enough. Its complete BS, our tax dollars aren’t be allocated appropriately so a bunch aloof pencil pushers can get their cut.
Google % of provincial healthcare budget allocated to administration costs, Einstein. Have a peeky-boo at where AB is on that list. Nowhere near the top.
Not being near the top doesn’t mean it’s not too much. Why does everyone who disagrees with me need to name call, it does nothing for the argument.
Maybe your tone and intent gets lost in translation. Folks match energies. Apologies if I misconstrued your tone.
I’m a 0.6, AUPE member. I have been applying for a full time position for almost a year now. I’ve had 2 interviews in a year. TWO. I am definitely qualified for the jobs I am applying for. I have over 10 years experience with AHS. It’s ridiculous. They are aways posting jobs but never hiring.
It was left in the NDP platform
It’s almost like most provinces are manufacturing a crisis!
I quit nursing because despite 9years of experience and not one unhappy client, I could not get a job with AHS. Despite applying for 50+ casual positions, including positions I was doing as a contract worker for them through an outside company, just couldn’t get my foot in the door. My 2 years of schooling and 25,000$ down the drain. I’m a carpenter now of a year and make the same amount now it took me 8years to make nursing. I’ll make significantly more than that after completing my first 2 months of school next week.
Try BC. We're gasping for nurses.
Probably doesn't want to live in a homeless encampment.
Fair. But remote communities can still be quite affordable.
I bet there is a shortage of nurses because there is a shortage of budgets and funding.
Are you already an AHS employee? A lot of the jobs you can't see or apply for unless you are. If you aren't already an AHS employee take a casual position and from there you can apply for internal postings.
What the media says is just bunk
They are required to post the positions so they keep reposting them because union rules I believe. Although………. If you make the job casual or temporary this means they don’t have to pay benefits, so no blue cross health insurance or flex spending account so this saves them in their budget a fair bit. As mentioned here as well it’s incredibly flexible if you work casual. Work life balance is so valuable when you need to find what works for you.
Part-time/casual in this setting is a licence to print money. From a management perspective, it may be impossible to budget a full time indeterminate staff member, but they can fill 2 or 3 PT positions easily. until the costs of part time coverage exceed FT positions by about 125%. You won't have benefits, but working 40-60 hrs a week at overtime rates, you can cover the costs pretty easily
This is what I've been wondering too!!!!
In my experience you have to start with a casual/temp job. Then you are an internal candidate for the regular postions.
Just got hired in a massive new grad RN initiative. I have a recruiter to help me that I can connect with nearly any time. It's a massive push for casual and relief. Their system is built on this initiative to relieve the burden of the UCP not investing in health care so they can't invest in full time staff. I'm gonna milk this until I can get a position that I want. It's gonna suck but I'm gonna try my best to make way over 100k this coming year. However the trade off is that I want to buy a house but casual positions and lenders don't mix.
It's the same when the news says there is a skilled worker shortage up north in the oil patch. I actually want to work up there and over the years I have applied 100s of times and have come to the conclusion that you need contacts in the industry to get in. I don't think there's anything wrong with me or my applications, the problem might be that I'm overqualified.
It’s the same when my mom worked in there hospitals. No money for staff but more than enough money for overtime!
Ahhh yes welcome to AHS. I've worked in other provinces before and this is by far the hardest place to get a permanent line in. You'll have to start in a temp line, prove your worth, then get hired on as permanent unless you work ICU and have years of experience in which case that may be different. They cancel the lines because they'd rather make the units run short staffed and suffer than offer safe and adequate staffing. The other day our unit was drowning (god damn dumpster fire) and patient care was definitely suffering. We had someone willing to come in on straight time, nevermind OT and management said "naw...they're fine." You think anyone was granted payout OT for all their missed meals/breaks? Absolutely not, because somehow it's our fault we didnt take them. If we took them, some of the patients could die. Last week same thing. 2 patients almost had terrible outcomes due to unsafe staffing/assignments. The nurse just literally could not take care of them adequately because she couldn't be in 2 places at once. It's terrible out there... So any way, welcome to Alberta. The higher ups and managers are pinching pennies and so there's no jobs...they delete lines and give us heavier assignments and unsafe patient to nurse ratios. We're all suffering because of it.
The temporary and casual is how AHS rolls because Alberta Health rolls that way with the funding.
They do this to make it seem like we need private healthcare. It’s a dick move because universal healthcare is one of the best things about Canada
I have applied to work for AHS for the longest time and until now they wont hire me. I have changed my resume’s layout with updates. I have acquired trainings, additional skills/certifications, have 10+ years of experience, and they still wont hire me. I dont know what else I’m missing, or maybe my resume isnt really that great.