September 16, 2025 — They came as temporary foreign workers (TFWs) in Canada, and many of them have stayed for good.
TFWs from the Philippines who worked in the country’s health care system have one of the highest rates of transitioning to permanent residency (PR), a path that leads to eventual Canadian citizenship.
A new government study looked at the experience of TFWs in health starting from 2000 to 2022, and Filipinos figure prominently in this journey.
The Statistics Canada paper noted that in 2000, 59 percent of TFWs in the health care sector came from 10 countries, and the largest source was the Philippines, with a share of 15 percent.
The nine other top source countries in 2000 were the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, South Africa, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand.
The number of Filipino workers increased significantly from around 500 in 2000 to over 4,000 in 2012 and 2013, making up 32 percent of total TFWs, related the paper titled “Temporary foreign workers in health care: Characteristics, transition to permanent residency and industry retention”.
Released on August 27, 2025, the paper authored by Yuqian Lu and Feng Hou also noted that 46 percent of TFWs in ambulatory health care services were from the Philippines during those years. [Ambulatory care refers to procedures that do not require overnight stay at a hospital].
The document likewise recalled that the “number of Filipino health workers declined markedly afterwards but rebounded during the pandemic, reaching 6,100 in 2022”.
The Philippines no longer holds the top spot as source country.
The Statistics Canada study related that in the 2000s, workers from India represented about three percent to four percent of TFWs.
“During the next decade, however, their number increased more than tenfold and surpassed that of Filipino workers in 2017,” the paper stated.
In particular, there were close to 15,000 Indian workers employed in the health care sector in 2022, accounting for 32 percent of TFWs in ambulatory health care services, 14 percent of those in hospitals, and 25 percent of those in nursing and residential care facilities.
For purposes of definition, among TFWs employed in health, common occupations include registered nurses, physicians, nurse aides, orderlies, and patient service associates.
Overall, TFWs in Canada’s health care sector have a high rate of becoming permanent residents.
The Statistics Canada study stated that by 2023, 58 percent of TFWs who worked in health from 2000 to 2022 had obtained permanent residency.
“TFWs from developing countries generally had higher PR transition rates than those from other regions,” the paper noted.
As examples, 77 percent of Filipino workers and 57 percent of Indian workers had obtained PR status by 2023, compared with 43 percent of French workers.
The Philippines continues to be a major source of TFWs in health.
Statistics Canada noted that the top 10 countries in 2022 were Haiti, Brazil, France, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, China, the Philippines and India.
The paper likewise noted that the top two source countries for TFWs in the health care sector—the Philippines and India—also provided the majority of permanent residents over the 2005-to-2023 period.
In detail, Filipinos accounted for more than 30 percent of the TFWs who received PR from 2005 to 2014, while over one-quarter of those who transitioned to PR from 2020 to 2023 were Indian, the study cited.
Women play a huge role in health care.
Not surprisingly, the study noted that among 105,000 TFWs who worked in the health care sector and became permanent residents from 2005 to 2023, about three-quarters were women.
The importance of TFWs in Canada’s health care system cannot be underestimated.
As the Statistics Canada paper noted: “Canada’s health care system has long faced challenges in maintaining adequate staffing levels to meet the growing demand for health care services, and the issues have intensified since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.”
The majority of TFWs in health are located in Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec.
The study pointed to the value of TFWs acquiring PR status.
“The long-term viability of TFWs as a stable labour source depends on two factors: the number of workers who transition to PR and the percentage of those who continue to work in the sector after obtaining PR. This study found that recent TFW cohorts had higher rates of transition to PR compared with earlier cohorts, whereas recent PR policy changes may have had a positive impact on the transition rate.
“After transitioning to PR, TFWs holding health-occupation-specific work permits had higher industry retention rates in the sector than those who did not have health-occupation-specific work permits,” the paper added.
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