Bangor’s largest hospital has raised its minimum wage to $17 an hour in an effort to retain staff and recruit new employees as health care providers across the state struggle with staffing.
The increase at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center brings the hospital’s minimum to $4.85 more than Maine’s current minimum wage of $12.15 an hour. An employee who works 40 hours a week all year at the hospital’s new minimum will make $35,360 per year.
The change was based on market conditions and hiring trends, among other factors, said Rand O’Leary, the hospital’s president and a senior vice president of the hospital’s parent organization, Northern Light Health. It will cost the hospital about $6 million in the first year.
“Though we are facing unprecedented financial challenges, we believe it is imperative we invest in the retention of our staff, and continued recruitment of our workforce,” O’Leary said.
The changes will benefit nearly 2,000 employees across the hospital, moving up the starting wage for certified nursing assistants, for example, to $19. The starting wage for certified medical assistants will rise to $20.27, according to Northern Light.
The increase comes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought significant strain on the hospital’s staff as they deal with Maine’s worst health crisis in a century. Hospitals across Maine have had difficulty filling openings, and large portions of their staff have been unable to work at times as they’ve had to isolate following exposure to COVID-19 or contracting the disease themselves, stretching existing staff. On top of that, the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate has led some employees who refuse to get vaccinated to quit their jobs or be terminated.
“The pandemic has highlighted how crucial our health care workforce is to meeting the needs of our community,” O’Leary said.
Northern Light had to take about 230 employees across its 10-hospital system — less than 2 percent of its total workforce — off future schedules due to their refusal to get the COVID-19 vaccine or a medical exemption, according to Paul Bolin, chief human resources officer at the health system.
Maine officials began enforcing the state’s vaccine mandate for health care workers last Friday.