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Just under half of new graduate nurses are starting the summer job-hunting after job numbers plateaued and slightly fell in the latest job match round. More than 1450 graduates initially applied through the ACE clearing house for a place in a New Year intake and 735 (51%) were known to be employed by the time they sat their state final exams in mid-November.

But as at November 13 there were 704 graduates (49%) remaining in the talent pool who were still seeking NETP (nursing entry to practice) jobs.*

Chief Nurse Jane O'Malley said the total number of applicants in the latest ACE round was down by 28 from the same time last year with a reduction in first time applicants. "Next year's Nursing Council data will indicate whether this reduction represents a plateau in the growth in the number of New Zealand educated nurses," said O'Malley. (The Nursing Council has reported slightly less applicants to sit state finals this November; down from 1380 to 1373 candidates).

There were also fewer jobs on offer with three fewer jobs offered than a year ago – despite ACE job placements for the first time including private surgical hospital provider Southern Cross Hospitals who offered and filled 12 positions through ACE.

Impacting on the number of jobs on offer in this November round was Hutt Hospital cancelling its usual February intake of 20 new nurses (see November 10 NewsFeed story) and MidCentral District Health Board initially offering only six places through ACE compared to the 28 places filled last summer.

This was offset by some of the large metropolitan DHBs – including Auckland, Waitemata, Waikato, Canterbury and Capital & Coast DHBs - committing to offering similar or more new graduate positions in the New Year.

Data from previous year's ACE rounds show that DHBs continue to take on extra new graduates over the summer as jobs become available with around 75 per cent or more of new graduates nursing within five months of graduating and the vast majority of new graduates nursing within 12 months.

This was reflected with just 3 per cent (42 graduates) of November 2014's bumper graduate cohort still looking for jobs through ACE.  Health minister Jonathan Coleman said this was an "impressive success rate".

"The Government is committed to ensuring we meet what we know will be a growing demand for new nurses – as our more senior nurses begin to retire, we also have a growing and ageing population. Communities will need the skills of nurses more than ever,' said Coleman.

This time round 54 per cent of the 1245 first time applicants (i.e. November 2015 graduates) were employed in the first ACE round leaving 46 per cent still job-hunting.  Nearly 150 graduates from July 2015 re-applied and a third were successful leaving 99 (20%) still job-hunting.  There were just over a handful of nurses (1%) who graduated in July 2014 still seeking jobs through ACE 18 months after graduating.

Of the jobs offered in the latest ACE round 124 were placed in NESP (new entry to specialist practice, mental health and addictions) programmes and the remaining 611 in NETP positions either directly employed by DHBs or in the primary health care or aged care sectors.

An ethnic breakdown showed that 54 per cent of Māori were known to be employed compared with 50% of non-Māori; and 53 percent of Pacific applicants compared with 50% of non-Pacific.

*12 new graduates withdrew their ACE applications so are not included in either the total numbers of employed or job-seeking graduates.