Labour market characteristics of Canada's health workforce, 2025
Released: 2026-10-19
In 2025, there were just over 1.7 million people employed in health occupations in Canada, up 81,200 (+4.9%) from the previous year and up 279,400 (+19.4%) from 2019. The health care system continues to face workforce pressures—driven by population and workforce aging, rising demand for health services and worker retention challenges—highlighting the need to understand labour market dynamics to inform workforce planning efforts.
A new study released today, titled "Canada's Health Workforce: An integrated summary based on Statistics Canada data, 2025," uses data from the Labour Force Survey, the Job Vacancy and Wage Survey and the Survey on Employment, Payrolls and Hours to provide a comprehensive picture of employment trends, workforce characteristics, unmet labour demand and wages across health occupations.
Canada's health workforce continues to grow, with registered nurses seeing largest increase in employment since the pre-pandemic period
From 2016 to 2025, employment in health occupations increased by an average of 3.0% per year—close to twice the growth rate observed across all occupations (+1.8%). The health workforce accounted for 8.2% of Canada's workforce in 2025, up from 7.9% in 2024 and 7.4% in 2016.
Workforce growth in recent years was strongest among registered nursing occupations (including registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, and nurse practitioners): in 2025, employment among registered nursing occupations was up by 6.5% (+25,300) from 2024 and by 33.3% (+102,800) from 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates also grew from 2019 to 2025, but at a slower pace (+5.8%). There was no net growth observed among licensed practical nurses over the same period.
Unmet labour demand remains elevated among health occupations, particularly among licensed practical nurses
There were 67,900 job vacancies in health occupations in 2025, down from the peak of 90,700 recorded in 2023. Despite this decline, the number of vacant positions for health occupations in 2025 was nearly three times the number recorded in 2016, when comparable data first became available in the Job Vacancy and Wage Survey.
In 2025, the job vacancy rate (the proportion of vacant positions among all filled and unfilled positions) for health occupations was 4.5%, significantly higher than the overall job vacancy rate in Canada (2.7%). While the vacancy rate for health occupations was down from the 2023 peak of 6.3%, it remained more than double the 2016 rate of 2.0%.
The job vacancy rate was notably high among licensed practical nurses, at 12.3% in 2025. While this was down from the peak of 18.7% in 2023, it was nearly five times higher than the rate observed in 2016 (2.5%). Comparatively, job vacancy rates for registered nurses (5.0%) and nurse aides, orderlies and patient services associates (4.7%) were lower, but they were still twice as high as the rates seen in 2016.
Nurses see little growth in inflation-adjusted average hourly wages since the pre-pandemic period
In 2025, the average hourly wage of core-aged (25 to 54 years) employees in health occupations was up 4.0% from 2024 and up 24.6% in nominal terms compared with 2019, before the pandemic.
After adjusting for inflation, the average hourly wage for core-aged employees in health occupations in 2025 was up by 1.9% from 2024 and by 3.2% from 2019. Core-aged nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates recorded real (inflation-adjusted) average hourly wage growth from 2019 to 2025 (+2.7%), whereas real average hourly wages declined by 1.4% among core-aged registered nurses and were relatively unchanged among licensed practical nurses (-0.6%) during this period.
Note to readers
The Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a monthly household survey of approximately 65,000 households, which provides information on the labour force characteristics of the Canadian population.
Employment in the LFS is defined as persons who, during the survey reference week, did any work for pay or profit or had a job and were absent from work. Unless otherwise specified, employed people in the LFS includes both employees and self-employed workers.
The Job Vacancy and Wage Survey (JVWS) is a quarterly survey of approximately 100,000 business locations in Canada with at least one employee. The JVWS provides comprehensive data on job vacancies and offered wages by industrial sector and detailed occupation at the national, provincial, territorial, and economic region levels.
A job (full-time, part-time, permanent, temporary, casual, or seasonal) is vacant if it meets all of the following conditions:
• it is vacant on the reference date (first day of the month) or will become vacant during the month
• there are tasks to be carried out during the month for the job in question
• the job is not reserved for subcontractors, external consultants, or other workers who are not considered employees
• the employer is actively recruiting outside the organization to fill the job.
Job vacancy rates by occupation were calculated using employment counts from the LFS which were adjusted for alignment of survey coverage.
Occupations in this analysis are classified according to the 2021 National Occupational Classification (NOC).
The term health occupations is used here to refer to all health occupations under the 1-digit NOC code 3, excluding those directly pertaining to animal care (31103 – Veterinarians and 32104 – Animal health technologists and veterinary technicians).
The term registered nurses is used here to refer to workers employed as registered nurses and registered psychiatric nurses (NOC code 31301) or nurse practitioners (NOC code 31302).
Wage estimates from the LFS were expressed in 2025 constant dollars using the all-items Consumer Price Index obtained from Table 18-10-0005-01.
Products
The article "Canada's Health Workforce: An integrated summary based on Statistics Canada data, 2025" is now available online in the Labour Statistics at a Glance series (71-222-X).
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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