The gig economy in nursing is alive and well. It just looks different

Nurses are hustling.?

The golden age of travel nursing may be sunsetting, but nurses are still picking up per diem work to help supplement their incomes. They’re just staying closer to home.

Staffing agencies report that they’re seeing a large number of nurses who are already employed. On Nursa , a site for temporary nursing jobs, as many as 72% of users already have a full- or part-time position, according to the company’s recent survey.?

While pay is the primary driver — especially with inflation driving up the cost of food, gas, travel and other expenses — a third of nurses on the platform also said they’re job hunting. Another 10% said they’d be open to accepting the right position.

On ShiftMed , another staffing agency, 40% of clinicians have a full-time role, according to Larry Adams, RN, MSN, MBA , the company’s executive vice president. Nurses who pick up additional work are typically mid-career, with about seven to 10 years of experience, he added.

LinkedIn data previously found that nurses made the largest transition into contract work of all the clinical fields we looked at. But demand for travel nurses has been declining as the staffing shortage has started to ebb. And that decrease in demand has meant that contracts are much less lucrative than they were during the pandemic.

Yet the gig economy has only changed shape — not gone away entirely. Hospitals have built their own internal float pools to give nurses more flexibility, but they’re still grappling with seasonal demand for nurses, especially when respiratory diseases are spiking or during severe weather events.

“In general, travel rates are down,” he said. “We’re getting pre-pandemic numbers from where we were. What we want to do is take that [interest] and apply it to their local area. They still feel like they’re in that environment, but they’re staying closer to home.”

Contract work continues to be a draw for many nurses. Only 62% of the 5,000 nurses and nursing assistants who responded to a survey from recruiting platform IntelyCare said they’re working in a full-time role. About 20% were working travel roles, either as their sole source of income or in combination with other types of positions, according to the December survey.?

Some contract workers want more control over their hours or location. And of clinicians enrolled in school, 28% said they only take on shift work, according to the Nursa survey.?

“By having the opportunity to work on the gig lifestyle, it allows folks to meet their work-life balance and pursue educational opportunities,” said Jeannine Raymond RN,MS , the company’s chief nursing executive.?

For their part, hospitals are also hiring gig workers with an eye toward recruitment. About 12-15% of gig workers will transition to full-time work, according to Adams at ShiftMed.???

“We like to use the words ‘try before you buy,’ which goes for both sides of the equation,” he said, adding that hospitals save money on hiring and orientation when they hire someone already familiar with the organization. Retention is as high as 95% when hospitals convert a gig worker to full time, he claimed.

“It’s all about embedding them into their current practices,” he said. “Don’t treat them like a float pool. Treat them like one of ours.”

Of course, one other draw for nurses is to be able to hold side gigs beyond healthcare (although most nurses with side gigs do stay in the healthcare industry.) I’ve met or heard about nurses starting digital health companies, philanthropic organizations or even building trucking fleets or dispatch centers. At HLTH, the large healthcare innovation conference held each fall in Las Vegas, nurse entrepreneurship was front and center with targeted programming throughout the event.?

Hospitals also haven’t seen the peak of the staffing shortage, which is expected to come within the next three years as more and more nurses reach retirement age.

And the tidal-wave trend across industries has been professionals demanding more work-life balance, helping to fuel a gig economy that is likely here to stay.

“Now more than ever, you are empowered to choose your own career,” said Raymond of Nursa. “You’re not confined to the traditional; you can have joy in your career.”