Did you know that legendary singers and rock n’ roll superstars once worked as nurses or nurses aides? However, that’s not the only surprising nursing fact you may not have known about. Join us as we come to the end of National Nurses Month with a special look at nine fun and unexpected facts about nursing!
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9 Amazing Facts About Nursing Jobs
#1: Nursing is one of the oldest careers in America.
Florence Nightingale, who lived from 1820 to 1910, is usually considered the first professional working nurse. It was Nightingale who started the first modern nursing school in London in 1860. In addition, people were doing nursing work and caring for the sick thousands of years before that. There is even evidence of early nurses in ancient Rome and Egypt spanning back to 3100 B.C.E.
That makes nursing much older than other common jobs like truck drivers, software developers, electricians, and more!
#2: Nursing is the most trusted job in the U.S.A.
Before Florence Nightingale started her school, people who worked as nurses didn’t get much love from the public. Today, though, it’s the most respected job in America. For 20 years, nurses have been voted the most trusted type of job in the country. That’s even higher than doctors, who rank second on the most recent list.
“Nurses have been atop the list every year except one since they were added to the annual ratings in 1999,” according to the most recent ethics ratings from Gallup. “That was in 2001, when firefighters earned a record-high 90% rating in their only appearance on the list in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”
#3: More people work as nurses than almost any other job.
More than 3 million registered nurses currently work in the United States as of 2022. Even without including the roughly 630,000 LPNs and LVNs in the U.S., that makes nursing the largest group of healthcare professionals in the country. On top of that, nursing assistants are the biggest group of people working in healthcare support.
#4: Nursing is the most diverse healthcare job.
Today, nursing includes more different types of people today than any other type of healthcare job. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, nursing has “a higher proportional representation of racial and ethnic minorities than other health care professions.” Nursing continues to get more diverse each year, especially as more men and ethnic groups enter the profession.
#5: Nurses are getting younger.
As of 2022, the average RN was 46 years old, compared to 52 just two years earlier in 2020. The numbers are similar for LPNs and LVNs, who were 47 (on average) in 2022 and 53 in 2020. This is mainly because of the pandemic, when many older nurses chose to retire. But now, it means that younger nurses are getting more opportunities to work the jobs they love.
#6: Pay for nursing jobs just keeps growing.
Another effect of the pandemic has been to raise the average pay for nursing jobs. But even before Covid-19, nurse pay had been steadily rising. According to NurseJournal, the average pay for RNs went from $72,180 in 2016 to $80,010 in 2020. Additionally, nursing jobs for LPNs and LVNs went from $44,840 in 2016 to $50,090 in 2020.
In the few years since, salaries for nursing jobs have gone up even more. A look at the open nursing jobs at CareerStaff.com shows many RN jobs paying between $60 to $70 an hour. That amounts to $120,000 or $130,000 per year, a huge increase over the previous average pay. In addition, LPN and LVN nursing jobs now pay as much as $30 to $36 an hour, which is close to $100,000.
#7: There are more nursing jobs available than ever before.
One of the reasons why nursing pay has risen so sharply in recent years is that the demand is so high. The fact is, there are more nursing jobs than nurses in the United States. So, if you’re considering working as a nurse, you can rest assured that you’ll have job security for years to come.
#8: Nursing careers have more variety than most other jobs.
Another perk of working as a nurse is the many types of available jobs. Nurses can choose to specialize in more than a hundred types of specialties. They can choose to work with kids, pregnant women, cancer patients, senior citizens, and many others.
Additionally, those jobs are available in lots of different types of facilities, too. Hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, schools and even correctional facilities are all actively staffing nursing jobs across the country.
#9: Some of your favorite celebrities used to be nurses.
Some of your favorite celebrities used to work a nursing job before hitting the big time! Amongst them is the late rock n’ roll superstar great, Tina Turner, who once worked as a nurse’s aide. According to Reader’s Digest, country superstar Naomi Judd also worked as an ICU nurse, while singer Paul Brandt was a pediatric nurse. Actors Adrian Holmes, Bonnie Hunt and Julie Walters also worked nursing jobs when early in their careers.
Find Your Next Nursing Job with CareerStaff
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