Male nurses needed in Chinese job market

Zhang Yong, a male nurse, gives an injection to an infant at the Zhengzhou No 1 People's Hospital in Henan province on Thursday. The number of male nurses is rising in large cities across the country. Zhang Tao / for China Daily

BEIJING - Chinese male nurses, who represent less than one percent of the total nursing population, are in huge demand in the nation's job market, the Chinese Nursing Association (CNA) said on Sunday.

Cheng Gen, a CNA member in charge of male nurse related work, said male nurses are expected to be very popular in the future job market considering their small number and huge market demand.

Cheng said male nurses mainly work in intensive care unit (ICU), emergency medicine department, cardiovascular department and mental disease unit.

Such a population is swelling rapidly, especially in large cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, Cheng said, adding that among the approximately60,000 registered nurses in Beijing, more than 2,000 are men, accounting for three percent, a share higher than the nation's average.

Cheng attributed the rapid rise in male nurse population to  significant improvement of remunerations for nurses. In the past, men were reluctant to stay a nurse and many quitted their jobs for low-pay and limited career development, Cheng said.

The National Health and Family Planning Commission said on Friday nurses' working conditions and remunerations have improved in recent years.

Among 5,809 nurses working in 112 hospitals across China, 84.2 percent are generally happy in their work, according to a third-party survey commissioned by the health authority.

China's number of registered nurses stood at nearly 2.5 million at the end of 2012, according to official statistics.