Canada needs nursing professionals, now more than ever. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada’s healthcare system was under tremendous pressure because it depended on the commitment of healthcare employees and frontline workers.
To support the remarkable work that the frontline workers were doing, the Canadian government announced officially on May 7, 2020, that it would be allocating $3 billion to increase wages of low-income essential workers. As a result, not only more nursing jobs opened up in Canada, but better professional opportunities with added benefits emerged as well. There are globally appreciated employment opportunities for nurses who complete nursing courses in Canada. For a nurse who works in Canada, it is possible to earn anywhere from $80,126 per year or $41.09 per hour to $94,322 per year. Moreover, nurses also receive benefits like paid vacations, extended healthcare, lucrative pensions, etc.
In this blog, we will see the state of nursing employment in 2021 in Canada, but first, let us begin by seeing the need for nurses in Canada and if they are really in high demand.
Need for Nurses in Canada:
The perilous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic made Canada realize the importance of having a responsive and adequate public health facility. With an increased focus on healthcare at present, it is even more natural that there will be a rise in the demand for medical professionals including qualified nurses all across the globe.
Canada has been facing a shortage of qualified nurses far earlier before the pandemic happened and affected the state of healthcare considerably. It was predicted long back that there would be a high growth of employment in the nursing sector in the coming times. According to this prediction, the vacancies in the nursing sector have been increasing substantially. However, the problem aggravated, even more, when the demand for nurses started increasing more than the supply. To put this simply, this meant that employers in Canada have been keen on hiring more nurses but the growth of nursing professionals has not been able to match the rising demand amongst these employers.
Benefits for Nurses in Canada:
Nursing professionals are known as some of the hardest working professionals all over the world. Canada acknowledges and honours this very well. This is a time when these essential workers are needed much more than they have ever been. Canada has not just aimed to increase their wages but the country is also working on offering many professional benefits to nurses who have completed registered nursing courses.
A nursing professional can look forward to many things while moving to Canada in 2021. Nurses can make the most out of extended healthcare benefits such as vision care, dental care, prescription drugs, etc. In addition, there are benefits such as life insurance, accidental death, and dismemberment insurance, pension plans, health, and wellness programs, counselling services, paid vacations, short and long-term disability benefits, semi-private hospitalization, etc.
It is also important to understand that these advantages might differ from one province to another, whether a nursing professional is employed full-time or part-time. Regardless, the nursing profession offers excellent opportunities to become successful in Canada.
Nursing Job Prospects in Canada:
The Canadian health care system cannot function without qualified nurses who have successfully completed their registered nursing programs. The job prospects for nurses are thus extremely bright. It is expected that sources of employment will open up for nursing professionals in the coming years mostly because many senior nurses will be retiring.
After completing the postgraduate nursing courses in a field of their choice, nurses can work in a wide range of settings such as nursing homes, rehabilitation centres, community agencies, research and policy centres, correction services, etc. COVID-19 crisis made it evident that nursing is a recession-proof profession.
When the general public got sicker during the recession because of perils such as widespread virus, homelessness, unemployment, etc., healthcare workers played the role of a saviour. It was evident that when people get ill or when they need extra support to stay healthy on a lower income, they need nursing care more than all else.
The exceptional role played by nurses for ensuring the health and wellbeing of citizens started being noticed even more after the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the nursing job prospects in Canada have become much better and any nurse who aspires to lead a professionally and personally satisfactory life can migrate to Canada with full confidence. In the future, vacancies will remain open for a long time before employers are finally successful in filling the positions.
Opportunities for Internationally Educated Nurses (IENs):
If we consider the important role of occupation and the severe implications of a nursing shortage, it is not a surprise that Canadian provinces have started initiating steps for attracting internationally educated nurses.
Several provinces have also come up with stream setups, particularly for nurses. Now, provinces also add the NOC codes directly related to nursing and home support workers with places such as Ontario being the latest to an in-demand skills stream.
Nursing in Canada will become strong only when qualified professionals are hired increasingly. The Canadian authorities are not leaving any stone unturned to make that happen at the present time.
Overcoming Canada’s Nursing Shortage:
Many professionals acknowledge the fact that the nursing shortage in Canada will go much worse before it gets better. To make sure that the growing labour shortage in nursing shows evident signs of easing, the state of nursing employment in 2021 will definitely take off.
Every year, Canada tries to work on nursing employment growth so that the numbers of nurses in Canada do not flat line. After completing postgraduate nursing courses, new professionals are reluctant to work for roles that require overworking and being under-appreciated.
Canada realizes that for filling the vacancies effectively in all provinces, the job incentives should be reasonable. There is a need to hire nurses for full-time work positions without putting a high workload on them and also giving them some time off when it is required. It is realized that young nurses do not want to be held captive to their employer for a long time while staying stuck in situations where they might be working for long hours only to feel defeated at the end of a gruelling shift.
Hence, authorities are prepared to make all possible efforts to ensure that nurses get an environment where they do not leave the work beaten down. There is a greater sensitivity to the morale of nurses being unaffected while avoiding burnout.
To strengthen the state of nursing employment in Canada, the authorities are also working in the direction of making the nursing profession attractive again. There is no denying that nursing is a challenging profession with human lives at stake which gets much more difficult when the nurses are expected to do more with fewer resources.
To effectively overcome the nursing shortage, Canadian authorities are focusing on retaining nurses by offering them enough attention.
Conclusion:
The state of nursing employment in 2021 in Canada will be highly focused on overcoming the shortage of professionals. It will be made sure that staffing levels meet the needs of patients so that citizens can feel confident and safe when it comes to healthcare.
There will be an increasing focus on ensuring that the professionals are in the right numbers so that the focus can increase on fair compensation levels thereafter. From increasing wages to offering work benefits, Canada is working on hiring more nurses in 2021 to strengthen the healthcare system.
