The economic downturn is likely to reduce latitude in
determining staffing levels and the anticipated shortage of
nurses may put a premium on recruiting and retaining the
best nurses (Clarke and Donaldson, 2008). This could well
provide a pretext for rooting out and trimming nurses and
nursing personnel who do not meet performance criteria in a
tighter labour market in the attempt to raise the quality bar of
the workforce. Equally, it could also set a premium on the
quality of the work environment in order to retain and
challenge a high quality workforce. In such circumstances