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Health Human Resources and Education in Canada
Do Canadian Health Graduates Find Jobs in their Field of Study?
Do Canadian Health Graduates Find Jobs in their Field of Study?
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The labour market outcomes of health graduates show that there is a clear demand for their skills. About 96% of health graduates from the National Graduates Survey's Class of 2000 who had not gone on to further studies were employed five years after graduation, most of them in full-time positions and most, but not all of them, in health occupations.
Rates of full-time employment were highest for graduates of programs leading to occupations in allied health diagnostic, intervention and treatment1 (93%), pharmacy (90%), communication disorders sciences and services2 (87%), and medicine (86%) (Table 1). Rates were somewhat lower for graduates of programs leading to occupations in rehabilitation (83%), social work (82%) and nursing (82%). Similar results are observed for graduates of college-level programs.
A majority find jobs in their field of study
Of the 96% (6,900) university health graduates who had not gone on to further studies and were employed five years after graduation (full-time or part-time), about 79% reported working in health occupations. Of these, about half reported working as registered nurses, 11% as physicians and 9% as pharmacists.
Due to the varied nature of work, some health programs do not necessarily lead to occupations included in the "health occupations" category. In fact, of the 96% university health graduates who were employed five years after graduation, about 21% reported not working in health occupations. The large majority of them were either working in health-related occupations such as psychologists or social workers (28%) or in occupations in social science, education, government service and religion (36%).
Similar results could be observed for the health graduates at the college-level, with slightly less than one-quarter reporting working in other sectors.
| University | College | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| All programs | 85.3 | 84.6 | |
| Health programs | 83.2 | 74.2 | |
| Communication disorders | 86.8 | x | |
| Allied health diagnostic | 93.2 | 91.2 | |
| Medical laboratory science | .. | 82.3 | |
| Medicine | 85.7 | .. | |
| Mental and social health services | 69.4 | 49.7E | |
| Nursing | 82.3 | 81.7 | |
| Pharmacy | 90.4 | F | |
| Rehabilitation | 82.8 | 81.1 | |
| Selected health-related programs | 79.2 | 79.3 | |
| Psychology | 76.3 | x | |
| Social work | 81.6 | 77.2 | |
| All other programs | 86.1 | 86.8 | |
|
.. not available for a specific reference period x suppressed to meet the confidentiality requirements of the Statistics Act E use with caution F too unreliable to be published Source: Statistics Canada. National Graduates Survey (Class of 2000). |
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Health human-resource planning information needs
Overall, then, almost all health graduates from the Class of 2000 who had not gone on to additional studies were employed five years after graduation, most of them in their field of study. This information is important for health-care planners in that it provides them with indicators of the proportion of new health graduates entering health professions and of the proportion choosing to work in other sectors of the economy. Trends in these respects may have implications for service delivery.
Furthermore, the extent to which health graduates are successful in their transitions to the labour market may factor into their decision to remain in the health sector over the longer term.
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