The nursing crunch is easing, but staffing challenges remain in remote areas

From the day you were born to the day you die, and through every broken bone, blood test, or serious ailment in between, chances are a nurse is by your side, providing care. In 2025, Canadians relied upon the services of 451,500 nurses and allied health professionals, approximately 1.1 for every 100 people in the land.

Over four in five (81.9%) nurses and allied health professionals worked full-time in 2025, and there were just over 10 female nurses and allied health professionals for every male nurse or allied health professional.

An important metric for measuring labour market tightness is job vacancies. A labour market where the demand for work outpaces the supply of workers will lead to more job vacancies.

From 2016 to 2024, the job vacancy rate for health-related occupations nearly tripled, increasing from 2.1% to 5.8%. The vacancy rate—the number of vacant positions as a proportion of all positions—was generally higher for nursing occupations and highest among licensed practical nurses (12.8%) in 2024.

Job vacancies in health occupations peaked during the later stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2022 and remained at over 90,000 vacancies per quarter until early 2024. Since then, health occupation vacancies have trended downwards. In the fourth quarter of 2025, job vacancies in health occupations were down by almost one-third (-31.3%) from their pandemic peak.

Indeed, vacancies for registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses (-5,500; -23.6%), nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates (-2,700; -15.1%) and licensed practical nurses (-2,600; -24.3%) were all down substantially in the fourth quarter of 2025 compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

In 2024, the majority (88.1%) of job vacancies for health-related occupations were in accessible economic regions, consistent with the higher demand associated with their larger population. However, demand for health-related occupations was much higher in remote regions, with a job vacancy rate of 9.3%, compared with 5.5% in accessible regions. This was especially true for registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses and nurse practitioners (13.7% versus 6.7% in accessible regions) and licensed practical nurses (22.6% versus 12.1%).

In remote regions, over 6 in 10 job vacancies for registered nurses/registered psychiatric nurses and nurse practitioners (61.8%) and licensed practical nurses (62.3%) were long-duration vacancies (90 days or more of active recruitment) in 2024, higher than the corresponding proportions in accessible regions (52.5% of job vacancies for registered nurses/registered psychiatric nurses and nurse practitioners and 47.8% of job vacancies for licensed practical nurses).

Almost one in four (23.8%) nurses and allied health professionals worked overtime in 2025. Among those who worked overtime, almost one in four (24.2%) did so without pay while 58.7% were paid for their efforts.

In general, nurses and allied health professionals worked more overtime hours on average than workers in all occupations in 2025 (2.0 hours a week versus 1.3 hours). However, they were working on average 30 minutes less of overtime a week in 2025 compared with the pandemic peak of 2.5 hours in 2022.

Nurses and allied health professionals were on the frontline during the pandemic and it took a toll on them.

In the year prior to the onset of the pandemic, nurses and allied health professionals missed on average of 14.8 days of work due to illness or disability. This rate jumped to 19.0 days in 2020 and 2022, but by 2025, the rate was down to 14.5 days, just below pre-pandemic levels.

Emotional demands at work can also affect the psychological well-being of nurses.

In 2024-2025, over one-third of workers in health occupations (35.2%) had to frequently deal with angry or dissatisfied clients or patients (at least half of the time during the previous 12 months), over double the rate seen for all occupations.