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The recruitment plea from an employment agency called HSG Strike Staffing was one of many that attracted thousands of replacement nurses to fill positions left empty this week by the first nursing strike at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, California in two decades. Crossing the picket lines comes with the promise of up to $13,000 a week in salary plus free food, housing and transportation. And the staffing agencies that hire them, increasingly owned by private equity firms, are reporting record profits.
The traveling nurses industry, fueled by labor unrest and the COVID-19 pandemic, has turned hospital staffing into a national bidding war, with health care facilities paying outside agencies exorbitant rates to secure help.
