Blog From Cebu To The World

Salaries of Filipino Nurses In The USA

Recent reports put the number of unemployed nurses in the Philippines at around 150,000. And this figure will continue to increase in the next few years considering the number of nursing students lately. Though these nurses can apply anywhere from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Canada, UK to nearby Singapore, the United States remain the most attractive of these destinations. Two things differentiate the USA dream: The salary of nurses and the immigrant visa.

My wife is a registered nurse and we are at the final stages of our immigration application for the United States. The current retrogression somewhat delayed everything, even though demand for nurses in the US is still very high, and expected to further increase in 2025, when the baby boomers will reach retirement age. The October 2008 visa bulletin had been released lately and there now seems a ray of hope for the nurses. The priority dates had moved too, though not the ones we expected.

Plenty of my wife’s friends and classmates are already in the US, having gone there more than two years ago, prior to the retrogression. Some had even transferred locations and employers when their initial contracts expired. They said that US hospitals are really in need of nurses. These hospitals even have some tempting offers and signing bonuses just to lure them to their fold.

When these friends and classmates of my wife happen to return here in the Philippines for a vacation, they get together and talk about their experiences and even the nursing salaries. How much does a nurse earn? They said that in nursing homes, where some of them started, the rate starts at $19/hr. If you are an NCLEX passer, they said that they give you a few dollars more per hour. For hospitals in a larger city, the rate is around $25-$35. To convert all of this on a 40-hr workweek, the nurses’ salaries is around 40–73k annual.

The Filipino nurses must be earning pretty well in the US! An aunt’s sister-in-law is working as a Nurse Supervisor at a New York hospital. And she can afford treating at least 10 of her family members on a cruise ship vacation each year, or even twice a year. Though my aunt’s not telling, I estimate that she must be earning six digits annual.

But for the new immigrant nurses, I guess there is not much choice as one has to honor contracts. I recalled the rate conveyed by a friend who was also hired by the same agency as that of my wife. Because she lived in a small city, and the cost of living is very low, her entry rate, despite being low as compared to those of other states, is more than enough to support her expenses. She can even send more money for her family in the Philippines.

Another classmate of my wife really had a difficulty when she and her husband first set foot in New Jersey. The entry rate is high, but the cost of living is also astronomical. It took them a few months to fully adjust and recover the initial costs of their immigration. Her husband, though a Law Graduate in the Philippines, was not able to find a job immediately.

Though the nurse salaries in the US if converted to peso is 30 times (or more) the compensation of those employed here in the Philippines, it is still not a guarantee of an easy life. They earn in dollars, they spend in dollars. And one really has to do proper financial planning especially in the face of the financial crises that rock the United States right now.

For more information, check out this website about nursing salaries. It is a free salary calculator by careerbuilder.com. They put the median at $54,126 annual for nurses nationwide. You can even check the nursing salaries of the various nursing positions, like occupational nursing supervisors, nursing aides and home care nurses, for the various cities in all states.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Tags: Career, Filipino Nurses, Nurse, Nurses in the USA   Posted in Nurses