Concern over graduate jobs for physiotherapists

ANOTHER 150 physiotherapy graduates have just hit the jobs market, just six months after the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists warned that 47% of last year’s graduates could not find work in this country.

The society is concerned that unless new junior physiotherapy posts come on stream, graduates will be lost to New Zealand and the US where physiotherapy shortages exist.

The Health Service Executive (HSE), with the support of the physiotherapists’ society, placed up to 300 graduates on recruitment panels earlier this year aimed at filling new positions quickly. Many of the HSE posts since developed have been for experienced physiotherapists, but the panellists have taken their former junior posts.