The number of temporary foreign workers in Canada鈥檚 health-care sector has soared over the past two decades, rising by nearly 1,700 per cent between 2000 and 2022, as the country struggles with labour shortages that have intensified since the onset of the COVID鈥19 pandemic, according released Tuesday.
In 2000, some 3,200 temporary foreign workers (TFWs) were working in the health-care sector. By 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, the number was almost 18 times larger at 57,500.
鈥淭o address the labour shortage in the health-care sector, the Canadian government has been actively recruiting internationally trained health-care workers,鈥 the report said.
Hospitals and health-care workers have long warned that staff shortages are stretching the Canadian health-care sector to the limit.
According to , in the fourth-quarter of 2024 the job vacancy rate was 5.6 per cent in hospitals and five per cent in nursing and residential care facilities, well above the 2.9 per cent average across all industries. Overtime is also common: 19 per cent of health-care workers (excluding management) worked extra hours in 2024, with nurses and allied health professionals topping 25 per cent, the report said.
While the growing reliance on TFWs highlights both the severity of staffing shortages and the need to recruit internationally trained professionals, health-care experts warn that TFWs鈥 precarious status makes them vulnerable to exploitation 鈥 putting both their safety and patient care at risk.
鈥淭he quality of work is the quality of care,鈥 said Danyaal Raza, a family physician with St. Michael鈥檚 Hospital and assistant professor at the University of Toronto鈥檚 department of family and community medicine.
鈥淚f we create work conditions that can be exploited by bad bosses, then that’s also bad for patients,鈥 Raza said, adding that TFWs 鈥 who can be more easily threatened with deportation and are less likely to object to harmful working conditions 鈥 must be given the same protections and path to permanent status as other Canadians working in the sector.
As TFWs have increased, the Statistics Canada report also highlights how the demographics of this workforce have shifted overtime.
In the early 2000s, most TFWs held health-occupation-specific permits and mainly worked in hospitals or ambulatory health care services.
However, since 2010, other permit types 鈥 including open work permits and non-health occupation permits 鈥 have become more common among TFWs in the health-care sector, with more workers taking roles in nursing and residential care facilities.
Since 2017, India has surpassed the Philippines as the largest source country for TFWs in health care. These workers have become increasingly concentrated in Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec.
In 2022, temporary foreign workers made up three per cent of the workforce in ambulatory health care services, 1.2 per cent in hospitals, and 4.9 per cent in nursing and residential care facilities. Their presence was even higher in certain areas, such as home health care services, where they accounted for 7.9 per cent of workers.
University of Ottawa professor Ivy Bourgeault, director of the Canadian Health Workforce Network, said the growing reliance on temporary foreign workers is concerning, noting that staff shortages are a long-standing problem driven by burnout and attrition that cannot simply be solved with temporary labour.
鈥淭emporary foreign workers are not just a temporary fix,鈥 Bourgeault said, stressing that the health-care sector must invest in better planning, recruit strategically within Canada and support current staff by improving working conditions.
鈥淲e need to think long and hard about how we solve this gap between the number of health workers that we have and the what the population needs,鈥 she said.
Raza of St. Michael鈥檚 Hospital stressed the importance of permanent status for newcomer health-care workers as more TFWs are hired to fill labour gaps.
According to Statistics Canada, nearly 60 per cent of TFWs who worked in the health-care sector from 2000 to 2022 had obtained permanent residency in Canada.
鈥淲e need to address these labour shortages 鈥 but it’s by giving people full status,鈥 Raza said. 鈥淚f we want to promote good patient care, then we have to make sure that workers who are providing that care are treated fairly.鈥
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