Over 30% of Canadian nurses and nursing assistants are immigrants
According to a report released by Statistics Canada on June 22, more than one-third of Canadian nursing assistants and nurses (nursing aides, orderlies and patient service associates) are immigrants. This ratio exceeds the average of other Canadian industries and is still rising. In 2016, among 87,925 Canadian immigrants, there were more than 24,500 employed as nursing assistants and care workers, which accounted for 35.8%. The proportion in 1996 was 21.7%. The above data highlights the national average for Canada. There are great differences between provinces and between urban and rural areas. For example, in Alberta, immigrants account for half of nursing assistants and caregivers. In larger cities such as Toronto, as high as 78.7% of immigrants work these positions, whereas only 2.9% work as nursing assistants and caregivers in Newfoundland. Among these positions, the largest ethnic groups are Filipinos and Blacks, accounting for nearly 30% of the total number of immigrant caregivers. Other ethnic groups working in these positions include Chinese (3.9%), Koreans (0.4%) and Japanese (0.3 %). One-quarter of them have an undergraduate degree or above, and most of them have worked in the field of public health and medicine before immigrating to Canada.
#nurses, #immigration_level