How to Avoid Underemployment and Maximize Your Income as a Travel Nurse

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Due to the temporary nature of travel nursing jobs, and the instability they sometimes exhibit, travel nurses are often at risk for underemployment. In fact, avoiding underemployment can prove to be a very difficult task. And frequent bouts of underemployment can have a serious negative impact on a travel nurse’s annual income. In this blog post, we’ll discuss “underemployment” as it relates to travel nursing and offer some recommendations for avoiding it and thereby maximizing your income. Read more

What Every Travel Nurse Ought to Know about Frictional Unemployment

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Travel nursing jobs are short term engagements typically lasting no more than 13 weeks. So it’s no secret that travel nurses engage in job searches more often than the average professional. What’s less understood is that certain realities in the travel nursing industry tend to exacerbate what labor economists refer to as “frictional unemployment.” In this blog post, we’ll discuss frictional unemployment, how it affects travel nurses, and how travel nurses can remedy the situation and save themselves time, trouble and money in the process. Read more

Travel Nursing Pay: Flexible vs. Rigid

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If you’ve discussed travel nursing pay with multiple agencies, then you’ve most certainly found that different agencies compensate their travel nurses in different ways. Some companies pay larger tax-free stipends than others. Some companies offer rental cars while others don’t. Some companies offer furnished one bedroom apartments while others will only offer an Extended Stay hotel.

The various individual differences can be difficult to keep track of. However, there are a couple of general differences that travel nurses should be acutely aware of. We’re going to discuss one of those general differences here, the difference between flexible compensation packages and rigid compensation packages. Read more

What Every Travel Nurse Should Know About Negotiating with Bottom Lines

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One of the top advantages of travel nursing cited by both travel nurses and agencies is the pay. It’s true that travel nursing pay packages are higher than permanent pay packages in many cases. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes, travel nursing compensation packages aren’t all that lucrative.

As a result, many travel nurses maintain “bottom line” requirements. If assignments don’t meet the compensation requirements, then they are passed over until an assignment that meets the requirements is offered. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some considerations for adopting this strategy and some of its advantages and disadvantages. Read more

Travel Nursing Pay: Overtime Bill Rates

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As we’ve noted time and again on this blog, bill rates are the single most important variable in determining travel nursing pay. The bill rate is the hourly rate that agencies can charge their client hospitals for the travel nurse’s time.

There are many different categories of bill rates. The overtime category is one of the more complicated bill rate categories and we’ll cover it in detail here. Understanding the issues at play with overtime bill rates will help travel nurses understand the limitations faced by agencies when determining “extra hours” pay which will help travel nurses with their compensation negotiations. Read more