Health P.E.I. posting 500 permanent full-time jobs in effort to stabilize workforce
Internal applicants without permanent status will get first crack at the jobs
Health P.E.I. is posting 500 permanent full-time positions for current staff members, hoping to change existing part-time and casual workers into full-time employees.
Having more full-time staff will make it easier for the health agency to schedule and figure out what ideal staffing should look like, said Maura McKinnon, the interim human resources executive with Health P.E.I.
"When we have more full-time people, it really allows us to stabilize the system, and with that, we are really able to help reduce overtime and make sure that people are able to get vacations," she said.
The objective is to fill as many of the newly posted positions with internal applicants as soon as possible before opening the process to external applicants, she said.
Health P.E.I. currently has a vacancy rate of 18 per cent, which means about 1,300 jobs are vacant across the system, McKinnon said.
Nurses union reacts
The move is a big deal for some health unions on the Island.
"This is unprecedented. I've never heard of this before, or seen that many jobs go up at the same time," said Barbara Brookins, the president of the P.E.I. Nurses' Union, which represents more than 1,400 registered nurses and nurse practitioners.
The union expects about 150 of the new postings to be for permanent nursing jobs, Brookins said.
She said having more people in permanent jobs is a good thing for the system, and also tends to be better for recruitment.
"If we're looking to recruit either new graduates or internationally educated nurses, or someone from outside of Prince Edward Island, the full-time commitment is usually what people are looking for," she said.
Until everything kind of settles down, there's going to be a period of upheaval right now.— Barbara Brookins
But many nurses still prefer the flexibility of part-time work and the ability to say no to certain shifts, Brookins pointed out.
She also questioned whether those who rely on part-time work would see their hours go down due to the increase in permanent full-time staff.
"Until everything kind of settles down, there's going to be a period of upheaval right now where people are not going to be assured… that they're going to be able to get those extra shifts, they're not sure whether or not they want to commit to full time," Brookins said.
Health P.E.I. is not getting rid of part-time and casual positions, McKinnon said.
"We will always have casuals in our system because some people will always want to work casual," she said.
'Move in the right direction'
Green MLA Matt MacFarlane said he's been hearing health-care workers support the idea of more full-time positions for some time now.
"This could potentially be a way to firm up and secure these front-line health-care workers ... [so] that we don't need to rely so much on the expensive travel nurses coming in to backfill positions as well," he said.
While it seems like a "move in the right direction," MacFarlane said the reason so many workers have moved to part-time positions is because it's the only way to guarantee that they will get some time off, especially in peak vacation periods when their children are off school.
"Moving to a full-time suite of positions sounds great," he added.
"We just want to make sure that the people who are willing to take those positions up are going to have the quality of life and the balanced lifestyle to be able to not be at work more than 100 per cent of the time," when overtime is factored in, he said.
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With files from Connor Lamont