40 Percent of Canadian Nurses Leave Profession Before Age 35: Report

A health-care worker is seen outside the Emergency Department of the Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver on March 30, 2020. Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press

Forty percent of nurses in Canada leave the job before they turn 35 years old, a new study has found.

The report, published on Sept. 24 by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), said that for every 100 Canadian nurses who started working in the field in 2022, 40 percent of nurses below the age of 35 quit. The number has increased 25 percent since 2013.

“This exodus of young nurses has been worsening for the past decade, contributing to our health care woes.” said MEI economist and co-author of the publication, Emmanuelle B. Faubert, in a news release.

The report said that based on these numbers, Canada is on its way to seeing a shortage of 117,600 nurses by 2030.

A Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) survey found the most common reasons nurses leave is due to staffing levels, workload, and a lack of work-life balance.

In 2023, nine out of 10 nurses reported some amount of burnout, the survey said. Four out of 10 nurses indicated they were planning to leave the profession, quit, or retire in the next 12 months.

CFNU said that guaranteeing more days off, adding flexibility to scheduling, and lowering taxes would help to keep nurses on the job longer.

How the Provinces Rank

The severity of the issue varies across Canada, with the east coast provinces seeing the highest number of nurses leaving.

In New Brunswick, 80 out of every 100 nurses leave the profession—a 51 percent increase from 2013. Nova Scotia saw a 42 percent increase, with 60 out of every 100 nurses leaving. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the number was 50 percent, an increase of 4 percent since 2013.

However, Prince Edward Island was one of three provinces that saw a drop in the number of young nurses leaving the job. Forty-four out of 100 nurses left, which is a 14 percent decrease from 2013.

Alberta saw 47 percent of nurses leave, which is 39 percent higher than 2013 statistics.

Quebec ranked fifth, with 43 young nurses leaving for every 100 nurses that entered the profession in 2022, representing a 29 percent increase over 2013 numbers. In Saskatchewan and Ontario, that number was 35. While it represents a 4 percent drop in the number of nurses leaving the job in Saskatchewan, it was an 82 percent increase for Ontario.

British Columbia saw the biggest improvement in the number of nurses leaving the health-care industry with 31 nurses out of 100 leaving, a 32 percent drop from 2013.

Manitoba saw the least number of nurses leaving at 29 out of every 100, which was an 11 percent increase from a decade earlier.