Nursing Statistics

Nursing Statistics

Highlights from the 2023 pan-Canadian statistics on regulated nurses from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI):

Nursing supply

In 2023, there were 477,980 regulated nurses eligible to practise. The distribution of nurses by licence type is as follows:

  • 321,971 registered nurses (RNs) — a growth of 2% from 2022.
  • 8,999 nurse practitioners (NPs) — a growth of 9.7% from 2022, the largest increase of all the nursing designations. In fact, NPs became one of the fastest-growing professions in health care.
  • 140,285 licensed practical nurses and registered practical nurses (LPNs and RPNs) — a growth of 3.5% from 2022.
  • 6,725 registered psychiatric nurses— a growth of 3.2% from 2022.

LPNs are the youngest group of nurses with an average age of about 41 years. RNs, NPs, and RPNs all had an average age of between 43-44 years. As a group, the nursing workforce is becoming younger, with average ages among each licence type decreasing slightly over the past year.

Sex

In 2023, about 90% of regulated nurses were female in Canada, so nursing continues to be a female-dominated profession.

CIHI collects data on sex (not gender) and thus does not have statistics regarding nurses with various gender expressions.

Employment

Percentage of regulated nurses by employment setting:

  • 45.8% worked in a hospital
  • 13.8% worked in community health
  • 11.8% worked in a nursing home/long-term care
  • 9.4% worked in other employment settings

Employment status of nurses in the workforce:

  • 63.3% of the workforce was employed full time
  • 26.2% were employed part-time
  • 10.3% were employed on a casual basis

Among all categories of regulated nurses, the percentage working in rural/remote regions has declined from 9.4% to 9.0% between 2022 to 2023.

Visit CIHI’s website for the full report, including data tables and provincial breakdowns.