November can be a bit of an odd duck month for the travel healthcare job market. As the last month before the busiest season of the year in terms of patient census,  many healthcare facilities are still trying to fill jobs needs with temporary staff. Many states still have job opportunities in the triple digits as of Nov. 13.

At the same time, many travelers who were job hunting in September and October are either committed to jobs with November start dates or have pre-booked for late-December or early-January to have free time during the holidays.

Travel healthcare jobs November 2018

Based on current job market data and information from staffing agency recruiters and sales representatives, we expect a slight increase in the volume of available job opportunities, but the amount of application activity should remain relatively flat. In other words, the amount travelers applying to jobs is already quite high—with dozens of submittals for competitive positions—and should stay high throughout most of the month.

A good portion of the job market volume increase will come from northern and cold weather states, like Oregon, Michigan, Colorado and Wisconsin. Hospitals in these states will need to fill vacancies left by “snowbird” travelers heading south, said Jamison Reitinger, a client advisor for LiquidAgents Healthcare.

“Bill rates are remaining consistently high in northern territories, except OR-RN rates, which are increasing across the board due to large OR nurse shortages in Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado,” Reitinger said.

There has also been a notable increase in travel nurse jobs available in the Southeast U.S., mostly in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. A large part of the increase is due to the recent surge in EMR conversion positions available in Kentucky and West Virginia through Appalachian Regional Healthcare.

The healthcare system started advertising temporary staffing needs for their hospital in late October and will need travelers through the rest of the year and into 2019, so we expect these states to see more incoming applications from travelers in November.

Depending on the severity of this year’s flu season, job market activity could also increase in Southern states like Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, as those states typically see high levels of flu activity earlier than others.

No major changes in the Top 10 most applied-to states

The most popular states for travelers—California, Florida and Texas—retained their top spots in October, and should continue to see high application numbers for the rest of the year.

South Carolina was the only new state to enter the top 10, moving up from No. 12. Georgia fell out, dropping seven ranks to No. 12.

Utah makes the largest jump, Connecticut drops the farthest

Utah saw the biggest surge in traveler applications by far, moving up 18 positions to No. 33 on the list. Connecticut dropped 12 spots to No. 46

October’s Top Markets

1. California
2. Florida
3. Texas
4. Michigan
5. Tennessee
6. North Carolina
7. Missouri
8. Pennsylvania
9. Arizona
10. South Carolina
11. Virginia
12. Georgia
13. Indiana
14. Kentucky
15. Oklahoma
16. Arkansas
17. Maine
18. Iowa
19. Idaho
20. Wisconsin
21. West Virginia
22. New Mexico
23. Nevada
24. Oregon
25. Colorado
26. Hawaii
27. Ohio
28. Washington
29. Massachusetts
30. New Jersey
31. Illinois
32. Louisiana
33. Utah
34. Alaska
35. Minnesota
36. Alabama
37. Montana
38. Kansas
39. Maryland
40. Mississippi
41. New Hampshire
42. North Dakota
43. Nebraska
44. Rhode Island
45. Wyoming
46. Connecticut
47. Washington, D.C.
48. Delaware
49. New York
50. South Dakota
51. Vermont

Editor’s note: This list is created by analyzing the number of travelers applying for jobs in these individual states and Washington D.C. Is not necessarily an indicator of traveler interest in these states and is not necessarily an indicator of job volume. Application data comes from the StaffDNA jobs database.