COMP NEWS – Travel nursing is a lucrative venture that pays high wages. Unfortunately, local nursing pays much less, causing hospitals to struggle with retaining talent while paying exorbitant costs for temporary coverage.

In Ohio, travel nurses earn $2,568 per week, or $64.19 per hour based on a 40-hour work week. That is $23.60 more per hour than registered nurses overall—higher than the difference in pay between travel nurses and all RNs nationally.

 

Across the nation, nurses who take travel contracts in the Midwest earn the most compared to their on-staff counterparts. Travel nurse pay stands out here, as a lower cost of living in this region often translates to lower compensation for residents. Offering high wages for traveling nurses in parts of the Midwest that are in need can help attract more RNs to these states, which are not ranked among the most popular for state-to-state migration. The Midwest enjoys higher ratios of nurses per capita than other areas in the U.S., which translates to less demand for travel nurses overall.

 

Conversely, the smallest differences in pay exist in the states where nurses are paid the most: Hawai’i and along the West Coast. These locations also have relatively high costs of living, particularly in urban areas, and strong nursing unions that help nurses demand better pay and benefits.

Travel nursing creates huge cost burdens for hospitals, many of which are still struggling to fund themselves

Staffing up with temporary contracts, like those of travel nurses, created huge cost burdens for hospitals from 2020 through 2022. Many hospitals are in precarious financial situations to begin with and may need to rework their staffing strategies to be more sustainable. Still, amid nursing shortages and an aging, increasingly care-dependent population, travel nurses will likely continue to be a critical element of the American health care industry.

To read more about wages for travel nursing, click here.

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