The Nursing Shortage in Canada

There is still a nursing shortage in Canada and all predictions are that it will worsen in the future. There is no lack of jobs in nursing. There are simply many more jobs in nursing than there are nurses to fill them!

It is a simple matter of supply and demand. Canada does not produce enough registered nurses to meet the growing demand.

The Demand

The number of jobs in nursing will increase in the future because the demand is increasing as a result of:

• an aging population. The fastest growing segment of the Canadian population is the age bracket over 85 years.


• increase in the acuity of patients in hospital. The number of people who are sicker and in need of skilled care from a registered nurse is growing.


• more health care being delivered outside the hospital setting.

The Supply

There are many registered nursing positions that remain unfilled. Nursing journals, the internet job boards, and newspapers are filled with ads for jobs in nursing and still the shortage of registered nurses continues.

Add to this the fact that the current registered nursing workforce is aging. The average age of the registered nurse employed in Canada in 2005 was 44.7 years.

There are not enough registered nurses being produced in the nursing education system to replace the nurses who will be retiring in the next 10-15 years.

Simply creating more nursing education programs will not solve the problem. There is already an acute shortage of qualified faculty members for the nursing programs that exist.

From time to time the provincial health authorities decrease the number of jobs in nursing because of funding shortfalls. These are some of the political nuances of nursing in Canada.

These situations are usually temporary. All long range predictions forcast a nursing shortage in Canada.

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Go from this article on the nursing shortage to the article on What You Need to Know to Get a Nursing Job in Canada

Read about the different types of nursing in Canada.

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