October 16, 2025 — A new study shows that less than 60 percent of nurses who came from the Philippines to work in Canada as nurses got back on track with their chosen profession.
For the rest, the dream of a nursing career perished.
More than 20 percent stayed in different health care occupations other than nursing, while almost 20 percent moved on to non-health professions, according to the study.
This situation is happening as Canada faces labour shortages in health care, particularly in nursing.
On September 24, 2025, the government released a study titled “Immigrant nurses in Canada: Alignment between intentions and employment outcomes”.
The paper was a collaboration between Statistics Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
The study shows that among the total of 12,651 immigrant nurses from across the world, who came to Canada between 2010 and 2020 and planned to work as nurses, only 63.4 percent stayed in nursing.
In addition, some 1.9 percent moved to other skilled health occupations.
Also, 13.4 percent moved to lower-skilled health occupations such as nurse aides, orderlies, and patient service associates or other assisting occupations in support of health services.
Some 9.7 percent moved to other skilled-non-health occupations; 7.8 percent to lower-skilled non-health occupations; and 3.9 percent did not work in 2020 and 2021.
The same study indicated that of the 12,651 internationally trained nurses who came and intended to work as nurses in Canada, nearly half came from the Philippines.
From 2010 to 2020, a total of 5,275 nurses from the Philippines moved to Canada with the intention of working as nurses.
However, according to the study, only 56.9 percent of these Filipino nurses stayed in nursing.
Some 1.6 percent moved to other skilled health professions; 19.3 percent, lower-skilled health occupations; 9.1 percent, skilled non-health occupations; 10.2 percent lower-skilled-non-health occupations; and 2.9 percent did not work in 2020 and 2021.
The study was authored by Hanqing Qiu and Feng Hou with Statistics Canada, and Haozhen Zhang and Jianwei Zhong with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
“Immigrants from Asia—who accounted for 84% of all immigrants intending to work as nurses—had significantly lower rates of actual employment in nursing, compared with immigrants from the Caribbean, Central and South America, the United States, and Europe,” the authors noted.
The study also showed that among immigrants admitted from 2010 to 2020 who worked as nurses in 2021, some 35 percent had intended to work as nurses at the time of their admission Canada.
The authors noted that this indicates that 65 percent of immigrant nurses did “not initially intend to work as nurses but later entered the profession after becoming permanent residents in Canada”.
“These results highlight the dynamic nature of immigrants’ career pathways,” they wrote.
As for immigrant Filipinos working as nurses in 2021, the study indicated that 36.3 percent of them intended to work as nurses in Canada.
Meanwhile, 39.1 percent of these immigrant Filipinos who were employed as nurses in 2021 did not originally come to Canada to work as nurses.
The authors noted that immigrants with Canadian work experience had an alignment rate between their intentions and employment outcomes that was 28 percent higher than those without.
Also, immigrants with Canadian study experience had an alignment rate that was about 25 percent higher than those who did not study in Canada.
“These results highlight the need to enhance and expand resources, policies and programs for immigrants entering the nursing profession, particularly those without prior Canadian work experience,” the authors wrote.
“Additionally, recognizing and leveraging the potential of immigrants who did not initially intend to work as nurses are crucial. Although they are not admitted specifically to address nursing skill shortages, improved access to nursing education and training can enable spouses and dependants in the economic class, as well as family class immigrants and refugees, to contribute significantly to the nursing workforce and address Canadian labour shortages.”
The Philippines is known as a major exporter of nurses to foreign countries.
Filipino nurses are valued for their strong sense of compassion, remarkable work ethic, and high level of English language proficiency.
Ironically, the Philippines is facing a shortage of nurses at home.