In a press release Otago Polytechnic said 92 per cent of the 90 graduates from November 2017 were known to be employed by February 2018.

The ACE job clearinghouse report showed that Southern DHB took on 53 new graduates for 2018 and neighbouring South Canterbury took on 13.  National statistics are not yet available for how many November graduates nationwide have gained positions. As at late November 57 per cent of ACE applicants had been offered new graduate places.

Crabtree said 81 per cent of the employed graduates were on NETP (nursing entry to practice) programmes and 13 per cent on mental health NESP (new entry to specialist practice) programmes. The remaining six per cent were in primary care including one employed directly in residential aged care. He said the majority of the Otago graduates had gone to positions through the Southern or South Canterbury district health boards but a couple had gone to North Island DHBs. None had gone overseas this year and only one the previous year, said Crabtree.

This backs ongoing calls by the national nursing organisations for 100 per cent placement of new graduates in new graduate programmes – a goal they had set to be met by this year.

The Ministry of Health analysis found that 86 per cent (806) of the 2012 nurse graduates who gained a place in a government-subsidised NETP (Nurse Entry to Practice) programmes were still in nursing five years on.

The proportion was even higher for mental health nurses with 88 per cent of the 123 new grads signed up to a specialist mental health NESP (New Entry to Specialist Practice) Programme) still having valid annual practising certificates (APC) five years later.

In comparison just 73 per cent (330) of the 455 new graduates who failed to gain a place in a NETP or NESP programme still had an APC in 2017. Overall 1244 (82%) of the 1514 nurse graduates registered in 2012 were still in nursing five years later. (See table below)

Chief Nurse Jane O’Malley said the higher proportion of new graduates still nursing if they had started their careers in a funded new graduate programme was “telling” and showed the importance of the programmes for nursing retention.

In 2013 the National Nursing Organisations – including the New Zealand Nurses Organisation and College of Nurses Aotearoa – called for full utilisation of all NETP funding to support the goal of 100 per cent employment of new graduates by 2018.  Government funding is potentially available to subsidise 1300 NETP and about 125 NESP places but lack of vacancies and tight budgets – particularly at district health boards – means only all the NESP funding is fully utilised.

New graduate nurses employed under a year-long NETP programme must receive clinical preceptor support for the duration of the programme and the equivalent of 12 study days with the aim of new nurses starting their career “well supported, safe, skilled and confident in their clinical practice”.

The analysis of the 2012 new graduate cohort – that uses data from the ACE new graduate placement and Nursing Council of New Zealand annual practising certificate data – also showed the vast majority of the new nurses still holding APCs were practising for more than 15 hours a week. (NB nurses practising for less than 15 hours a week but still with valid APCs may be on parental leave, travelling overseas or between jobs.)

The APC data indicated that just over a dozen nurses with valid New Zealand APCs were currently practising overseas.  (Retaining an NZ APC indicates that they may only be working overseas for a limited amount of time and/or wanted to retain the option of returning to New Zealand to nurse.)

Overall 582 (43 per cent) of the 1389 applicants found out on November 22 last year that they were unsuccessful in the first job match. While most of the unsuccessful applicants were seeking surgical or medical nursing positions, the latest ACE report shows a high proportion of graduates seeking mental health and addictions, aged residential care and primary health care roles were also unsuccessful.

Hilary Graham-Smith, professional services associate manager for the New Zealand Nurses Organisation, said yesterday that hundreds of graduates missing out on jobs was unacceptable considering the national nursing workforce goal was 100 per cent placement by 2018.

The ACE Nursing Algorithmic Match Report provides a breakdown of the 913 jobs on offer and the 775 new graduates matched with jobs on November 10 in the end-of-year round of the ACE new graduate nurse job-matching process. In all, 57 per cent of the 1389 applicants found out on November 22 that they had been offered positions on Nurse Entry to Practice (NETP) and Nurse Entry to Specialist Practice (NESP) programmes. At least 138 positions were still to be filled as at November 10 and historically more graduates are also offered jobs over the summer break as vacancies arise leading up to NETP and NESP programmes getting underway in late January/early February this year.

Graham-Smith said the overall trend in new graduate jobs for nurses showed no significant increase. “This is not the case in medicine: every new graduate doctor has a place on an entry programme. This speaks to the chronic under-investment in nursing and a complete lack of progress on guaranteeing all new graduates of a place on a programme by 2018,” she said.

She said Health Workforce New Zealand head Des Gorman has called it a “perfect storm” as nursing has gone through a long period of under recruitment and training. “This matches our research on nursing employment. We have an aging workforce and over-50s leaving. We are simply not attracting, training or retaining enough nurses to future-proof our healthcare services,” she said.

Concern was expressed last year about shortages and high vacancies for acute mental health nursing positions. The ACE match report shows that 55 of the 210 applicants who expressed interest in the NESP programmes for mental health and addiction nurses were unsuccessful.

In addition, 25 of the 39 nurses who indicated a preference for aged residential care and 189 of the 359 who were keen on primary healthcare positions (which include practice nursing, prison nursing, Plunket and hospice positions) were unsuccessful in the first job round.

The DHBs in which it was hardest to get jobs (i.e. which turned away the highest proportion of applicants who had put that DHB down as their first preference) included Hutt Valley, Mid-Central, Capital & Coast, Waikato, and Auckland, which accepted between 28 to 42 per cent per cent of the first-preference applicants (see table at bottom of article for the number of jobs on offer).

Ethnicity and second-time-around job rates 

The percentage of Māori and Pacific nurse graduates offered jobs on November 10 was again slightly higher than the average job success rate at 70 per cent (145 of 206 applicants) and 63 per cent (54 of 85 applicants) respectively, compared with 57 per cent for all applicants.

Asian applicants were once again the least successful in obtaining job offers, with just 39 per cent (86) of the 220 applicants being offered a job in the first round. The job rate for the ‘other’ ethnicity category (largely Pākehā/European) was the same as for all applicants – 57 per cent – with 490 of the 846 applicants being successful.

The vast majority of the November applicants were first-time-round applicants and 60.5 per cent of those applicants were successful. Just over 35 per cent of the 115 second-time-round applicants were successful and 26 per cent of the 49 applicants applying for a third time or more.

The ACE Nursing Intake Summary Report was prepared by the agency TAS (formerly known as DHB Shared Services), which owns ACE Nursing on behalf of the 20 DHBs.

The next ACE report is not due until after the National Talent Pool, from which DHBs can employ unmatched new graduate applicants, closes in late June.

Report author Kamini Pather said there was a lot of dynamic change to ACE daily statistics as applicants get offered jobs, withdraw from the talent pool for other reasons or change their preferences. This meant there were only two points in the recruitment cycle where stable and reliable data could be extracted. Those were at the time of the electronic match (November 10) and once the National Talent Pool and end-of-year intake closes, which is about seven months later in late June.

But there were 583 new graduate applicants without job offers vying for those remaining 139 positions. So many new nurses will once again start the summer job-hunting and hoping more positions will open up over the Christmas/New Year break.

The Ministry of Health this week released initial data on the 2017 ACE Nursing end-of-year job ‘match’ between the 1357 new graduate nurses who applied and the 901 positions on NETP (Nurse Entry to Practice) and NESP (new entry to specialist practice, mental health and addictions) programmes being offered via the 20 district health boards and Southern Cross.

In the first round in mid-November 774 applicants (57 per cent) were matched and were sent job offers on November 22, leaving 139 positions still to be filled by the remaining 583 applicants in the talent pool.

The proportion of graduates matched with jobs by mid-November appears to be slightly up on last year. Statistics released on December 9 last year for the 2016 round showed 779 new grads had jobs (54 per cent of applicants) but that figure included 16 applicants who secured jobs after the initial mid-November match and 13 applicants known to have got non-NETP or NESP positions. The number of applicants in 2016 was the highest ever with 1455 initial applicants of which 1434 took part in the job match.

Further information on the latest round will be made available in mid-December including which clinical settings the new nurses have been offered jobs in and how many graduates have accepted the initial job offers and how many jobs were still to be filled from the remaining talent pool.

The Ministry of Health says data trends from previous end-of-year new graduate recruitment rounds have followed a similar pattern with about 50 per cent of graduates gaining employment before they know the outcome of the Nursing Council State exam and that almost all (96-98%) graduates applying though ACE will be employed within 12 months.  But a number of these will be employed outside of the government-subsidised and mentored NETP and NESP programmes – including in residential aged care – which has prompted continued calls from nursing organisations for all graduates to be offered new graduate programme places.

New graduate Nov ACE job trends

*Number of applicants can drop by the time job offers are made in mid-November as graduates either get jobs with other employers or withdraw for other reasons. From 2014 onwards eligibility for applying to ACE nursing was extended so new graduates could apply for NETP/NESP positions for up to two years (i.e. up to four times) after passing state finals.

**The cut-off date for supplying job offer data can vary slightly from year to year from – so sometimes includes additional jobs offered in late Nov/early December. Employers keep offering jobs over the summer so the number who actually start NETP programmes in the New Year is always higher.

NA = not available

The graduate destination survey of the 502 graduates who passed state finals this winter found that 346 had jobs by September 30.

That is equivalent to 77 per cent of the nearly 420 mid-year graduates who responded to the annual NETS (Nurse Education in the Tertiary Sector) survey or 69% of the 502 new graduates who passed state finals in July).

Of the remaining 156 mid-year graduates 64 (12.7%) were actively looking for work, eight were not seeking RN work and there was no data from 83 (16.5%)*.

About 294 of the graduates had gained places in NETP (nurse entry to practice) programmes by the end of September, which is up on the 278 mid-year graduates known to have gained NETP jobs by the end of August, according to the Ministry of Health statistics released in September.  Most of the NETP positions were in medical (74) or surgical wards (68) followed by 47 in mental health (i.e. NESP or new entry to specialist practice positions), 29 in child health and 23 in primary health care.

The NETs graduate destination survey also captures data on graduates who find jobs outside of the NETP scheme, with 53 known to have gained non-NETP positions.

The majority of the non-NETP jobs were once again in continuing care elderly – with 33 in the residential aged care sector. Concern was expressed last year by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation at the high number of new graduates being employed in aged care without the support of a mentored NETP programme. Nursing Review also reported earlier this year that the number of new graduates employed into supported NETP places in the aged care sector had nearly halved to 16 at the start of this year compared to 30 at the same time the previous year.

The next most common areas for non-NETP jobs were primary health (8) and surgical (3). One new graduate had gained a nursing position overseas.

Eight nursing schools had mid-year cohorts sitting state finals in July (a further eight graduates from five other schools also successfully sat state finals in July). The nursing schools’ graduate job rates, ranged from 68 per cent to 90 per cent of their mid-year graduates having nursing jobs by the end of September.

*No survey data was received for the 50 Unitec new graduate nurses who passed state finals in July or from 33 graduates from five other schools.