Canada continues to struggle with a shortage of nurses despite federal efforts to recruit foreign-trained health care workers, with vacancy rates for licensed practical nurses remaining five times higher than they were nearly a decade ago.Blacklock's Reporter says new Statistics Canada figures show the job vacancy rate for licensed practical nurses stood at 12% in 2025, compared with 2.5% in 2016.The findings were published in Canada’s Health Workforce: An Integrated Summary Based On Statistics Canada Data, which examined employment trends and labour shortages across the health care sector.“Vacancy rates remained highest among licensed practical nurses at 12% in 2025,” the report stated. “This was down from a peak of 19% in 2023, but five times higher than the rate in 2016, 2.5%.”Although vacancies have declined from their recent peak, Statistics Canada warned the supply of licensed practical nurses has failed to keep pace with demand.“Although the number of licensed practical nursing vacancies has declined since 2021, the persistently high vacancy rate for this occupation group coincides with the absence of any net growth, indicating a workforce supply that may not be keeping up with labour demand,” analysts wrote.The report relied on Statistics Canada’s monthly labour force surveys and employer questionnaires examining job vacancies and payrolls.“High vacancy rates generally indicate employers are having greater difficulty recruiting workers,” the agency said.Across the broader health care sector, including doctors, nurses and orderlies, employers reported 67,900 vacant positions in 2025.That represented a decline from 90,700 vacancies in 2023, although health care continued to account for a significant share of unfilled jobs nationwide.“Demand for health care workers remained elevated in 2025, accounting for 13% of all job vacancies in Canada,” the report stated..The persistent shortages come after successive federal governments promoted immigration as one way to address staffing problems in Canada's health care system.Ottawa increased permanent immigration admissions to a record 483,640 people in 2024, with nursing shortages among the workforce pressures cited in support of higher immigration levels.However, a separate 2025 report from the Department of Immigration found a substantial share of immigrants admitted with the intention of working as nurses were not employed in nursing occupations.The study, Immigrant Nurses In Canada: Alignment Between Intentions And Employment Outcomes, examined economic principal applicants admitted between 2010 and 2020 who were between 18 and 54 years old and intended to pursue nursing careers.Researchers found 63% were employed in nursing occupations in 2021.Another 25% were working in lower-skilled health care positions, lower-skilled jobs outside health care or were unemployed.“The results show that among economic principal applicants who were admitted from 2010 to 2020 aged 18 to 54 and who intended to work as nurses, 63% found jobs in nursing occupations in 2021 while 25% worked in either lower skilled health occupations or lower skilled non-health occupations or were not employed,” the report stated.Researchers also found that previous Canadian work experience played an important role in whether immigrant nurses successfully entered the profession.“Pre-admission Canadian work experience was a strong predictor,” the report said.Immigrants who secured nursing positions were more likely to be younger women with English-language proficiency and at least a bachelor's degree.The study also identified differences in employment outcomes based on immigrants' regions of origin.Immigrants from Asia accounted for 84% of those who intended to work as nurses but had significantly lower rates of employment in nursing occupations than immigrants from the Caribbean, Central and South America, the United States and Europe.The report did not identify a reason for the differences.Researchers said the findings raised questions about how effectively Canada was using the professional skills of immigrants admitted to help fill nursing vacancies.“This study reveals a mixed picture regarding the skill use of immigrant nurses in the Canadian workforce,” the report concluded.The findings were based on a decade of immigration records and employment data, while the latest Statistics Canada figures show nursing vacancies remain elevated despite some improvement since 2023.
