Immigrant Nurses Have ‘Mixed’ Results Working in Canada: Federal Report

A nurse monitors a patient from outside his room in the COVID-19 intensive care unit at St. Paul's hospital in downtown Vancouver on April 21, 2020. The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward

Immigrant nurses have “mixed” results in the Canadian workforce with more than 60 percent finding employment in their field and roughly a quarter working in lower-skilled occupations or unemployed, a recent government report says.

Approximately 63 percent of immigrants who intended to work as nurses found jobs in nursing occupations in 2021, while 2 percent found jobs in other skilled health occupations, and 13 percent worked in lower-skilled health occupations, such as nurse aides, orderlies, and patient service associates, a joint study conducted by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and Statistics Canada indicates.

“This study reveals a mixed picture regarding the skill use of immigrant nurses in the Canadian workforce,” the report says, which was first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter.

Meanwhile, approximately 10 percent found jobs in skilled non-health occupations, 8 percent worked in lower-skilled non-health occupations, and 4 percent did not work in 2020 and 2021.

The study looked at IRCC data and the 2021 census for immigrants who were admitted to Canada between 2010 and 2020, aged 18 to 54, and intended to work as nurses at the time of admission, the Sept. 25 report says.

“The alignment between intended and actual employment in nursing varied by immigrants’ sociodemographic characteristics,” the report says.

Those who had a higher rate of becoming employed as nurses in Canada were women, those who were of younger ages at admission, those who spoke English, and those with a bachelor’s degree.

Immigrants from Asia, who accounted for 84 percent of all immigrants intending to work as nurses in Canada, had “significantly” lower rates of actual employment in nursing compared to those from the Caribbean, Central and South America, the United States, and Europe, the study found.

“Canadian work experience prior to admission significantly increased the alignment between intended and actual employment in nursing,” the report says, noting that the alignment rate for those with prior work experience in Canada was 28 percentage points higher than for those without. The study found the same to be true for immigrants with Canadian study experience, whose alignment rate was roughly 25 percentage points higher than those without.

Nursing Shortage

The study also found that 35 percent of immigrants admitted to Canada between 2010 and 2020 who were working as nurses in 2021 had intended to enter the nursing occupation when they were admitted. Meanwhile, 65 percent did not initially plan to become nurses, but later entered the profession after becoming permanent residents in Canada.

Those who intended to work as nurses were primarily principal applicants in the economic class, while those who didn’t intend to enter the nursing occupation included spouses and dependents in the economic class, family immigrants, refugees, and other immigrants.

Those who didn’t intend to work as nurses were younger at admission, which the report says increased the likelihood of studying nursing in Canada after immigration. The study also found that those who didn’t intend to enter the nursing occupation were less likely to work full time and had lower weekly earnings on average.

“These results highlight the need to enhance and expand resources, policies and programs for immigrants entering the nursing profession, particularly those without prior Canadian work experience,” the report says. “This includes efforts to address social, educational, professional and personal challenges that internationally educated nurses may face.”

The report notes Canada is facing “significant” labour shortages in the health care sector, particularly in nursing. A 2024 report published by the Canadian Institute for Health Information said labour shortages were made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to increased workloads, longer work hours, burnout, and high turnover rates among health care workers.

The IRCC and StatCan report says improved access to nursing education and training could enable spouses and dependents in the economic class, as well as family class immigrants and refugees, to “contribute significantly to the nursing workforce and address Canadian labour shortages.”

A June 20 department of health briefing note said there was a shortage of more than 28,000 registered nurses in Canada, which the department projected will “deepen” over the next 10 years. The note also said there are an estimated 198,000 internationally educated health professionals employed in Canada, but only 58 percent have employment in the field they were trained in.