Just the Facts
COVID-19 and the employment of health care workers
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Health care workers continue to play a central role in Canada’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Health care workers are employed in the broad occupational category of health occupations and work across Canada in hospitals; ambulatory health care services (including walk-in clinics and dentists’ offices); and nursing and residential care facilities.
In 2019, 89.2% of health care workers were employed in a job which typically involved close or very close physical contact with others, compared with 50.3% for the rest of the employed population.
Data table for Chart 1
| Health care workers | Other workers | |
|---|---|---|
| percentage of workers working most of their usual hours | ||
| Women | 77.9 | 42.0 |
| Paid by the hour | 78.9 | 48.5 |
| Multiple jobholder | 5.7 | 3.7 |
|
Notes: Workers who worked at least 50% of their usual hours during the LFS reference week. Three-month average ending in May 2020. Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, custom tabulation. |
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Over the period from March to May 2020, nearly 3 in 10 health care workers (27.4%) who were working more than half their usual hours were registered nurses, while 1 in 10 were physicians (11.8%). Women accounted for 86.7% of registered nurses and 40.9% of physicians.
Data table for Chart 2
| Employment by subsector | |
|---|---|
| number of workers | |
| Hospitals | 454,500 |
| Ambulatory health care services | 228,300 |
| Nursing and residential care facilities | 167,600 |
|
Notes: Workers who worked at least 50% of their usual hours during the LFS reference week. Three-month average ending in May 2020. Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, custom tabulation. |
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Among health care workers who worked most of their usual hours during the March to May period, an average of 53.4% were working in hospitals, 26.8% in ambulatory health care services and 19.7% in nursing and residential care facilities.
Data table for Chart 3
| Employment change, February to May 2020 | |
|---|---|
| thousands | |
| Ambulatory health care services | -64.7 |
| Hospitals | -4.9 |
| Nursing and residential care facilities | -2.5 |
|
Note: Not seasonally adjusted. Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, custom tabulation. |
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As governments imposed restrictions on non-essential health care activities and shut-down parts of the economy in mid-March, some health care workers lost their jobs. In May 2020, there were 72,100 fewer health care workers (not seasonally adjusted) compared with February, a decline almost entirely driven by the ambulatory health care services subsector. Little change was observed in hospitals and in nursing and residential care facilities.
The number of employed registered nurses, who were mostly working in hospitals, was also relatively stable over this time period.
Data table for Chart 4
| Ambulatory health care services | Hospitals | Nursing and residential care facilities | |
|---|---|---|---|
| persons, thousands | |||
| 2019 | |||
| June | 35.6 | 32.4 | 14.0 |
| July | 51.7 | 31.4 | 11.9 |
| August | 57.7 | 36.4 | 11.5 |
| September | 32.3 | 36.1 | 18.4 |
| October | 44.2 | 40.6 | 20.0 |
| November | 32.3 | 38.7 | 16.8 |
| December | 33.0 | 46.2 | 19.8 |
| 2020 | |||
| January | 43.0 | 38.9 | 21.7 |
| February | 36.7 | 36.1 | 16.4 |
| March | 199.1 | 64.7 | 27.4 |
| April | 198.4 | 63.9 | 36.1 |
| May | 184.6 | 47.9 | 30.9 |
|
Notes: Workers who worked less than 50% of their usual hours (including zero hours) during the LFS reference week for selected reasons. Not seasonally adjusted. Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, custom tabulation. |
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The COVID-19 crisis has resulted in an unprecedented number of Canadians who are still employed, but working zero or very few hours.
From March to May, the average number of health care workers who worked less than half their usual hours for reasons likely related to COVID-19 was 284,300. The increase in the number of COVID-19-related absences since February was concentrated in ambulatory health care services.
Notes
Health care workers are defined as workers employed in health occupations who are working in health industries. This corresponds to ‘health occupations’ in the National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2016 and the ‘health care and social assistance’ industry (excluding social assistance), as defined by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 2012.
Workers working most of their usual hours are employed persons who, during the Labour Force Survey (LFS) reference week worked at least 50% of their usual hours.
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