Seventeen percent of nurses plan to seek a new place of employment as the economy recovers, according to survey results released today by AMN Healthcare Services Inc. (NYSE: AHS). This is a drop from last year’s survey of registered nurses, when 24 percent said they would seek new jobs.

Sixty-six percent said they will continue as they are, an increase from 55 percent last year.

Thirty-one percent of nurses plan to take steps in the next one to three years to exit nursing altogether — by retiring or seeking non-nursing jobs — or reduce the volume of clinical work they do by switching to part-time or less demanding roles.

While 91 percent of registered nurses are satisfied with their careers, 44 percent would not select or are not sure they would select nursing as a career if they had the opportunity to start again. And 40 percent either would not recommend nursing as a career to young people or were not sure that they would.

The survey had 2,931 respondents.