Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, people who work in health care have struggled with overwhelming workloads and longer work hours, resulting in mental and physical exhaustion, burnout and — for many — an exit from their profession.Reference1 Reference2 In 2021–2022, hospital staff (excluding physicians) worked more than 26 million overtime hours — the equivalent of 13,000 full-time positions.Reference3  At the same time, Canada’s growing and aging population has an increasing need for care. This combination of short staffing and high demand could mean longer waits and deteriorating health for patients, and more burden on health workers. 

������ϱ�

I’m a caregiver for my parents. I think it’s very evident when I take my mom or my dad for appointments that there is not enough staff. ������ϱ� care workers are busy, and they want to assess, treat and move on to the next person quickly. It’s especially challenging when you are advocating for a loved one with a language barrier who is unable to communicate efficiently. — Yasir Khalid, Patient Partner, Ontario

Governments and health care planners across the country are working together to address health workforce challenges, including

• Improving working conditions to keep existing professionals and attract new ones
• Speeding up credentialling for internationally trained health workers
• Increasing the number of seats in training programs
• Collecting data to help balance the supply of health workers with increasing patient needsReference4

This priority area tracks indicators that measure the annual “net new rate” of health providers who join or leave a province’s or territory’s workforce. A net new rate is the difference between the number of providers entering and leaving the workforce in a specific province or territory in a year, presented as a number for every 10,000 residents. These indicators are

• Family Physicians Entering and Leaving the Workforce
• Nurse Practitioners Entering and Leaving the Workforce
• Nurses Entering and Leaving the Workforce

Most provinces and territories had a net increase for at least 2 of the 3 groups of professionals in the most recent year where data was available. Prince Edward Island, Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia had a net increase for all 3. 

Family physicians are usually Canadians’ first contact with their health care system, helping with common illnesses, preventive care, chronic disease management and more. There were 48,199 family physicians in Canada in 2022.Reference5  While the number of family physicians in Canada is increasing, the 5-year growth rate of family physicians in Canada has slowed from 12.9% (2012 to 2016) to 7.7% (2017 to 2021).Reference6

With Canada’s population growing rapidly, maintaining a proportional increase in the supply of family physicians is important to adequately meet the population’s needs. Recent changes to physician practice patterns may also be having an effect:

• Family physicians are on average seeing fewer patients per year, from 1,746 in 2013 to 1,353 in 2021.Reference6
• Family physicians feel their workloads are too heavy and that they spend too much time on administrative work.Reference7 Reference8
• Nearly 30% of family physicians are now providing services primarily outside of primary care, doing more emergency medicine (14.2%), psychiatry (5%) and general surgery (2.1%).Reference6

NPs integrate clinical nursing skills with advanced education to provide care in hospitals, community clinics, health care centres, primary care and long-term care. They also play a critical role in delivering care in remote or underserved communities. 

The number of NPs is growing faster (increasing about 9% over the last decade) than the numbers of other regulated nurses and physicians.Reference3  However, NPs remain a relatively small proportion of health care professionals — in 2023, Canada had 8,999 NPs, less than 1 per 1,000 Canadians.Reference8  Nearly all provinces and territories had more NPs entering than leaving jobs in 2022. 

Nurses make up Canada’s largest group of regulated health professionals, with 468,981 members in 2023 working across a variety of health care settings, such as hospitals, primary care, long-term care and home care.Reference8  This number includes

• 321,971 registered nurses (RNs)Reference8
• 140,285 licensed practical nurses (LPNs)Reference8
• 6,725 registered psychiatric nurses (RPNs)Reference8

In most provinces and territories, more nurses entered their profession than left it, resulting in a net increase in nurses in 2022.Reference8 These changes were driven by the net change in RNs, who make up the largest segment of nurses.Reference8 Provinces and territories have taken steps to increase their nursing capacity through many initiatives, including making it easier for nurses educated in other countries to practise in Canada. In 2022, internationally trained nurses made up an average of 12% of newly licensed nurses across the provinces and territories, a 4-percentage point increase from 2017.Reference3  

Despite the increased number of nurses, in 2022 compared with 2021, there were approximately 2,500 (5.1%) fewer nurses working directly with patients in long-term care. Similarly, the number of RNs providing direct care in hospitals dropped 0.6%.Reference3 

• Family Physicians Entering and Leaving the Workforce, 2021–2022 — Data Tables (XLSX)
• Nurse Practitioners Entering and Leaving the Workforce, 2022 — Data Tables (XLSX)  
• Nurses Entering and Leaving the Workforce, 2022 — Data Tables (XLSX)
• State of the health workforce in Canada, 2022: Supply and distribution
• Changes in practice patterns of family physicians in Canada