A lens on the supply of Canada’s health workforce

Annual growth rate in supply of selected health care providers over the past 3 years in Canada

Notes
NPs: Nurse practitioners; RNs: Registered nurses; RPNs: Registered psychiatric nurses; LPNs: Licensed practical nurses; OTs: Occupational therapists; PTs: Physiotherapists.
In Ontario, licensed practical nurses are referred to as registered practical nurses.
RPNs are regulated only in the 4 western provinces and Yukon.
For more information regarding collection and comparability of data as well as notes specific to individual provinces and territories, refer to profession-specific methodology notes on CIHI’s website.

Sources
Health Workforce Database, Canadian Institute for Health Information. 
Scott’s Medical Database, Canadian Institute for Health Information, with raw data provided by iMD (© 2022 iMD Health Global Corp.).

Overall supply measures reflect the total number of health care workers licensed and available to work in a health profession, but only a subset of this workforce is employed in direct patient care. Overall supply numbers provide a high-level sense of workforce capacity, but a closer look at direct care employment numbers provides a deeper understanding of how many people are working in the different sectors of care. Despite growth in overall supply numbers in 2021, some sectors of care saw losses in health workers employed in direct patient care. There were almost 500 fewer registered nurses (RNs) in direct care employment in long-term care (2.2% decline) and over 100 fewer licensed practical nurses (LPNs) in direct care employment in community health agencies (0.8% decline). Throughout the same period, there was an increase in nurses employed in direct patient care in other sectors: there were 1,251 more RNs (6.5% increase) and 667 more LPNs (8.2% increase) employed in direct patient care jobs in settings such as private nursing agencies, occupational health centres and self-employment.

Percentage change in the number of regulated nurses employed in direct care by place of work, 2020 to 2021

Notes
NPs: Nurse practitioners; RNs: Registered nurses; LPNs: Licensed practical nurses; LTC: Long-term care.
Jurisdictions for which data on place of work is not available are not included in this analysis.
In Ontario, licensed practical nurses are referred to as registered practical nurses.
Registered psychiatric nurse (RPN) data is not reported due to data quality issues related to place of work.
For more information regarding collection and comparability of data as well as notes specific to individual provinces and territories, refer to profession-specific methodology notes on CIHI’s website.

Source
Health Workforce Database, Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Many factors contribute to where health professionals practise in Canada. One factor that contributes to a health care provider’s location of practice is their location of training. For physicians, medical graduates tend to remain in the same province when they graduate in bigger provinces. In 2021, about 80% of new graduatesFootnotei in Quebec, Ontario or British Columbia stayed in the province, while only 49% remained in the province if they graduated in Newfoundland and Labrador. New nurse graduates,Footnotei on the other hand, are more likely to remain in province following graduation regardless of the size of the province. In 2021, 93.6% of new RN graduates and 96.6% of new LPN graduates registered in the province where they graduated, regardless of the size of the province.   

In rural and remote regions of Canada, different factors influence location of practice. Fewer physicians per population reside in Canada’s rural/remote regions, which rely on itinerant physicians (non-local physicians on short-term contracts) to provide care to their populations. For example, in 2020–2021, similarly to previous years, about half of family physicians (FPs) were itinerant family physicians (18 out of 43) in Nunavut. Nurse practitioners can help to address this gap and play an important role in the primary care delivery model.Reference1 Because of their additional education and training, NPs can autonomously perform activities such as diagnosing illnesses and ordering tests;Reference2 this expanded scope can reduce pressure on the health care system and, through collaboration with other health care providers, improve access to primary care.Reference1 In the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, there were 72 NPs per 100,000 population and in Yukon, 51 NPs per 100,000. The territories and Newfoundland and Labrador also had the highest ratios of NPs to FPs in the country. Further analyses of rural/remote areas in other jurisdictions will paint a more accurate picture of the pan-Canadian situation. 

Nurse practitioners and family physicians per 100,000 population and NP-to-FP ratios, 2021

 

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Jurisdiction	NPs per 100,000 population	FPs per 100,000 population	NP-to-FP ratio
N.L.	39.38	133.51	0.295
P.E.I.	28.16	109.50	0.257
N.S.	22.98	138.50	0.166
N.B.	19.26	139.76	0.138
Que.	10.91	131.72	0.083
Ont.	24.61	116.15	0.212
Sask.	20.34	105.78	0.192
Alta.	13.48	122.06	0.110
B.C.	12.06	136.50	0.088
Y.T.	51.18	165.17	0.310
N.W.T./Nun.	71.84	100.11	0.718
Canada	18.24	123.77	0.142

Notes
NPs: Nurse practitioners; FPs: Family physicians.
Prince Edward Island data is for 2020.
Workforce count data for NPs in Manitoba is not available.
Northwest Territories and Nunavut data is combined.

Sources
Health Workforce Database, Canadian Institute for Health Information.
Scott’s Medical Database, Canadian Institute for Health Information, with raw data provided by iMD (© 2022 iMD Health Global Corp.).
Statistics Canada. Special tabulation, based on Estimates of population (2016 Census and administrative data), by age group and sex for July 1st, Canada, provinces, territories, health regions (2018 boundaries) and peer groups. 2022.

• Health Workforce in Canada Quick Stats, 2021
• Nurse practitioner scopes of practice, 2020
• Health workforce scopes of practice