In addition to what snapetom said, there are about 4400 annual vet jobs and 3200 new grads. Someone is going to miss out.
Graduates who want to make money will go to commercial or fisheries operations, which pay better overall. We're in the bay area, one of the highest-demand regions in the highest-demand state. There aren't many people left to compete over. Corps are currently offering 5-6 figure sign-ons and bonuses in our area. Even if the salary can be matched and they accept, there's still the tech shortage snapetom mentioned. Those people are often commuting from places like Tracy to have reasonable housing costs and many have simply left the industry entirely. You can raise salaries, but there's still only a limited number of people with RVT licenses.
I have absolutely no idea why they haven't increased the number of residencies available (not a field I work in), but the process to become a vet is similar to other medical specialties. There's a limited number of slots available annually, and the number of slots is lower than the number of people retiring, let alone accounting for industry growth.
>There aren't many people left to compete over. Corps are currently offering 5-6 figure sign-ons and bonuses in our area.
They simply are not offering enough money. If 5 to 6 figure bonuses do not work, then they should be increasing pay to high 6 figures or 7 figures. I would be surprised if 7 figures does not solve their supply issue.
It's not as simple as hiriing vets. It's having techs to support the vets. Minimum, you need two techs to support a vet, ideally three. Many states require techs to be licensed and have at least AA degrees, so you're paying for an additional 2-3 educated people plus the vet.
Of course, the "ideal" rarely happens, the point is, with every vet you add, issues of juggling staff, scheduling, and turnover skyrocket
I'd assume it ends up being that once the company owns all of them it can assign vets to whichever office needs "coverage", jack prices, and raise salary somewhat, too.
To be fair to the companies, they do usually work to "maximize vet time" where they hire or outsource the other stuff the office does so the vet is spending most of their time vetting instead of paperwork and office work.
