Quick Guide on Agency Nursing Rates

If you have ever wondered about the best agency nursing rates, how they compare, or simply whether your agency is paying enough, then hopefully this article will help, as these are the questions we’ll be tackling. We’ll also cover a new, more efficient way to finding temporary and permanent nursing work in Australia.

So, let’s look at casual nurse rates and nurse salaries in Australia and the standard starting income for a newly-qualified registered nurse. As an example, we know that in the New South Wales public healthcare sector, a newly qualified registered nurse makes on average around $62,400 per annum. Now for an experienced registered nurse, we know that they will generally earn on average $87,620 per annum. Junior nurse’s salaries are well below the Australian average wage of $83,454, which is why so many Australian nurses are looking for ways to boost their income.

In Australia, casual labour-hire employment and temporary work have been on the rise for the last 20 years and the number of permanent positions has fallen. While there are definitely benefits to working casually like freedom over when and where nurses work and higher nurse pay rates, there are downsides which should be considered too, such as a lack of job security.

One way nurses can boost their income is by signing up to work for a nursing agency, but how do agency nursing rates compare to working as a permanent staff member? Let’s start with how nursing agencies work.

How do Nursing Agencies work?

Agencies are private companies (recruitment firms, or agencies) that recruit and employ a pool of nurses to distribute to short-staffed hospitals across the city, state or country to fill shift vacancies. When a hospital is short-staffed, the staffing unit phones a number of their preferred provider agencies, sometimes as many as 12, to supply them with available nurses. The agencies then call or text their nurses to confirm availability, and once confirmed, phone the staffing unit back to confirm the booking. (Some of the more progressive agencies will use an App). The staffing unit then passes the name of this nurse back through the supply chain of managers or staffing meetings to the floor manager, who writes the name in the allocation book.

If the team leader has worked with a nurse a few times already, allocating a fair patient load isn’t too challenging, and team leaders are more likely to rebook a nurse who performed well on shift. If they are not familiar with the nurse, they have to use what information they have to allocate a nurse, which often isn’t much, therefore nurses can end up being allocated patients that they don’t feel comfortable looking after. At the end of the day the agency is paid, regardless of which nurse they place, and there have been times that this hasn’t been in the best interest of the nurse or patient needs.

Agencies have also been known to cancel a nurse at one hospital and re-allocate them to a hospital paying a higher commission. One nurse we interviewed reflected on an occasion where they were cancelled from a hospital and offered a shift at another hospital further away and which she preferred not to go to. Later when having a coffee with a colleague from the hospital that cancelled her, she learned that the hospital didn’t, in fact, cancel her, as they remained short-staffed for that shift. “I felt like I was a pawn in a chess game, being moved around to suit the agency because I discovered that they would make a higher profit on me by sending me to another hospital,” she exclaimed. Experiences by agency nurses such as these and many more lead them to question their worth as professional healthcare service providers, and whether working through an agency is even worthwhile.

Next, let’s have a look at how nursing agencies charge hospitals.

What is a Nursing Agency Commission?

This is the hourly rate that the nursing recruitment agency takes for placing a nurse in a position. The agency sets the rate they will pay their nurses and charges an additional commission to hospitals for their revenue. Contracts between hospitals and agencies vary, which causes some bias over which agencies hospitals select as their preferred providers and which hospitals agencies prefer to send their nurses to. Different contracts between agencies and hospitals can also work against nurses if, for example, it is contracted that the hospitals can send the nurse home after just 4 hours on shift. This results in financial disadvantage for the nurse, particularly if they have travelled a fair distance to get to the hospital to work the shift.

What you should know about Nursing Agency’s Commission?

If you’re working for a nursing recruitment agency it’s important to have a general idea of the nursing agency’s commission. Unfortunately, rates of commission are confidential in contracts with each hospital but is generally possible to tell which agencies charge hospitals high fees because they are the ones that offer perks and kickbacks to nurses including high bonus joining payments, training, quick payments, an app, and rate top-ups.

Agencies that charge hospitals high fees are often contacted last to source nurses, and these nurses are cancelled first as a result. Therefore, at the end of the day, these nurses lose out. Nurses should prioritise working with agencies that promise low fees to hospitals because this affects their likelihood of being placed in shifts thus increasing their income potential.

Now that we’ve covered how nursing agencies charge hospitals, what are the average agency rates for nurses?

Average Agency Pay Rates for Nurses

A casual shift in a hospital will earn you an extra 18% (for a public hospital) or 25% (in a private hospital), whereas an agency nurse can earn an extra 45% on top of the base rate. In these three arrangements, this increased rate of pay is to compensate for the loss of sick leave, annual leave and the lack of income security.

This extra money is well-deserved. Agency nurses often take on shifts or have their shifts cancelled at the last minute. They are relied upon to hit the ground running and have the ability to quickly build relationships with new colleagues and work in varying environments with people they don’t know.

The average salary for an agency nurse in Australia is $52.91 per hour. Salaries vary widely by capital city (with Brisbane topping the list and Hobart coming in last according to data averaged by Indeed). The average hourly rate in Sydney is $49.86.

So, yes, the average agency rate for nurses is higher, and for good reason, as explained above. However, the high fees that traditional nursing agencies charge hospitals are a significant downside to being an agency nurse because these fees force hospitals to restrict their use of on-demand nurses.

So what are the alternatives for nurses looking for casual work?

Want to Know Your Nursing Casual Rate of Pay Across Australia?