Nursing is often touted as a recession-proof job, but even nurses have not been spared by the economy. Hospitals are laying off nurses and cutting back on hiring. That has nursing executives in Maine worrying what will happen when the economy rebounds.

After Serena Howes graduated from nursing school out of state, she moved back to Maine with her daughter, convinced she would find a job in no time.

Six months and nearly 100 job applications later, Howes knows differently. "I've only had two interviews in Maine out of all the applications that I've put in."

Demand for hospital services has plummeted in the recession, and with it, the revenue needed to hire new nurses. The latest crop of nursing graduates is now facing the most competitive job market in anyone's memory.

"Some places you couldn't even talk to the recruiter," Howes says. "Other places were a lot more open and more inviting and they would just be very apologetic and say, 'We're really sorry but we still have graduates from last May that are still applying.'"

Howes, who is 48, thought her 4.0 GPA, internships and previous experience as a case worker would land her a job. But of the hospitals that are hiring, many want experienced nurses who don't require orientation and training like recent graduates do.

"On bad days, you think what a failure you are, you know, that you uprooted your family for this dream and it's, it's, you know, upsetting," Howes says.

Nurse Jody Deegan hires other nurses for Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Howe's application for a new grad position was among the 200-plus she reviewed.

Deegan says before the economy tanked in 2008, Howes would have been a top candidate. "However, if you've traditionally hired 30 new grads, and you're only going to hire 15, you've got to prioritize that."

Deegan says a nurse who has interned at the hospital as a student is going to have a leg up. "You've got individuals that have worked in your unit, and you're familiar with their skill set."

Deegan says hospitals are further hamstrung in their ability to hire new nurses because the cash-strapped state of Maine owes them millions of dollars for treating patients in the government-sponsored Medicaid program.

At the same time, older nurses are staying in their jobs longer than anticipated. "Many times, nurses are the primary wage earner in the home because their significant other might have been laid off, and so there is less turnover, less risk-taking in terms of changing positions or changing hours, not knowing when the economy is going to improve," Deegan says.

Maine also has a lower vacancy rate for nursing positions than other states to begin with, and a higher percentage of licensed nurses working as nurses.

But Lynne Gagnon, president of the Organization of Maine Nursing Executives, sees a day not too far off, when the economy rebounds, triggering an exodus of retiring nurses. She worries that the next generation of younger nurses might not be around to fill their shoes.

"These nurses coming out of school, all their school loans kick in so they can't wait to find some kind of job to help them pay back loans," Gagnon says. "Some of the nurses we hear are going out of state because there are more places hiring out of state than we are."

This year, her hospital, Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft, can only afford to hire four nurses on a per-diem basis -- that means they don't get benefits and work unpredictable shifts. "The average age of my nurse at the bedside is 50. So in 10 years, if half my nursing staff wants to retire, there's not going to be that number of nurses who want to come to Dover-Foxcroft, Maine to work," Gagnon says.

Demand for nursing services is expected to also rise with the aging population, and an increased number of people able to access health care because of federal reform efforts passed this year.

Marge Wiggins, chief nursing officer at Maine Medical Center in Portland, has this prediction: "We expect 2015, which is not that far away, to have a significant shortage."

Wiggins says to prevent such a shortage, Maine Med is trying to help nursing programs in the state expand the number of nursing students that graduate beyond the 800 or so who did last year.

The hospital could do this by providing more clinical teaching staff. "You can't have more than eight students being overseen by the clinical faculty member, and so that is a restricting factor because it's expensive for schools to do that, and it only allows them to take in so many students," Wiggins says. "Last year our educational facilities had to turn away 1,100 qualified students."

But Wiggins acknowledges that for the present time, there are more nurses than there are jobs. And until demand for nurses returns to pre-recession levels, nursing professors are advising graduates to cast a wider net for jobs.

"It used to be you always said you must have a year or two of medical/surgical experience in an acute care hospital," says Nancy Smith, who chairs the nursing department at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland. "We recommend that they look everywhere: physician's offices, clinics, outpatient settings of any kind, long-term care facilities."

But recent nursing grad Serena Howes says she's run out of time to look for a job. "My student loans come due next month -- first of June. So I have $20,000 in student loans."

She's moving to Alabama, where she had attended nursing school, and is more confident she will find a job. She says she plans to return to Maine one day, but with some more experience that might help her secure her a job the next time around.