Young nurses are leaving over working conditions, study says
Canada’s health care system is struggling to hold on to young workers, with the number of nurses leaving the profession before they turn 35 up sharply in recent years, according to a report released by the Montreal Economic Institute.
For every 100 nurses trained in the country who started working in the field in 2022, there were 40 who left the profession before their 35th birthday, the report released on Sept. 25 reveals. This means that in a single decade, the proportion of young nurses abandoning the system has gone up 25 per cent from 2013.
Some of the most commonly cited concerns by these nurses were a lack of control over their work schedules. Their principal sources of workplace stress include mandatory overtime and a lack of shift flexibility.
Other reasons nurses mentioned for leaving include insufficient remuneration, stressful work environments and problems with work-life balance, to mention a few.
The public policy think-tank’s report estimates that by 2030, Canada will have a shortage of 117,600 nurses.
“This exodus of young nurses has been worsening for the past decade, contributing to our health-care woes,” said Emmanuelle Faubert, the study’s co-author and an economist at the Montreal Economic Institute.
A survey from the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions in March provided a similar insight. That is, that throughout Canada, nurses below the age of 35 are more likely to leave their current job — or leave the profession altogether — than remain where they are.
The severity of the issue varies across Canada.
Manitoba lost less than one third of its young nurses in 2022, while many provinces’ ratios were closer to one half.
New Brunswick performed worst of all, losing eight young nurses for every 10 that
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