Carrington College Featured in Sacramento Business Journal Regarding Local Demand for More Nursing Graduates

On December 13, 2019, Carrington College was featured in the Sacramento Business Journal regarding the rising demand for professional nurses.

Nurses represent the majority of Sacramento’s health care workforce, from registered nurses to licensed vocational nurses at various hospitals and clinics. This includes certified nursing assistants that provide care in nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities.

The article noted, “California nursing jobs, from nursing assistants to registered nurses, are anticipated to grow by 15 percent to 17 percent by 2026, outpacing the national growth rates for those professions, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Labor.”

With a lack of schools and training facilities, the state of California is actually projected to have a shortage of 140,000 nurses by 2030, according to a 2017 report published by the American Journal of Medical Quality. In addition, this demand has continued to rise because of the health needs of aging baby boomers and the need for long-term care facilities and home health agencies.

As a result, career-focused schools have become a pipeline for workers entering the Sacramento area labor force. While Carrington College typically only has space for about 24 registered nurses and 30 licensed vocational nurses at a time, the number of applications that those programs received rose about 25 percent from last winter’s application period to the summer application period in August.

“Carrington College’s Sacramento campus is one of the college’s 19 campuses across the country, with nursing as one of its most popular programs,” said John Andersen, campus director at Carrington College in Sacramento. “The greater Sacramento area is ripe for health care jobs,” added Andersen.

Sacramento employers and employment agencies are also trying to address the rising demand in nursing professionals. “In the past, it was the community clinics and senior care facilities that struggled to fill nursing positions,” said Preet Kuar, CEO of Pacific Staffing.

The demand for workers has some of the largest local employers focusing more on vocational colleges. “Larger employers are all over the place partnering with these schools, doing externships and waiting in line to be on the advisory board,” Kuar said. “Employers are increasingly offering mock interviews and information sessions for students at schools as well, she said.

With a looming gap in health care workers, nursing programs at schools like Carrington College are only going to grow more popular. The Sacramento campus offers both a Vocational Nursing program and a Registered Nursing LVN to RN associate degree program, where licensed vocational nurses can train to become registered nurses that perform advanced functions such as helping devise patient care plans and supervised dispensing of certain types of medications.

For more information, here is the full article in the Sacramento Business Journal: https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2019/12/13/limited-resources-with-health-care-labor-shortages.html