40 Percent of Canadian Nurses Leave Profession Before Age 35: Report

Forty percent of nurses in Canada leave the job before they turn 35 years old, a new study has found.
The report, published on Sept. 24 by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI), said that for every 100 Canadian nurses who started working in the field in 2022, 40 nurses below the age of 35 quit. The number has increased 25 percent since 2013.
The report said that based on these numbers, Canada is on its way to seeing a shortage of 117,600 nurses by 2030.
In 2023, nine out of 10 nurses reported some amount of burnout, the survey said. Four out of 10 nurses indicated they were planning to leave the profession, quit, or retire in the next 12 months.
However, Prince Edward Island was one of three provinces that saw a drop in the number of young nurses leaving the job. Forty-four out of 100 nurses left, which is a 14 percent decrease from 2013.
Alberta saw 47 percent of nurses leave, which is 39 percent higher than 2013 statistics.
Quebec ranked fifth, with 43 young nurses leaving for every 100 nurses that entered the profession in 2022, representing a 29 percent increase over 2013 numbers. In Saskatchewan and Ontario, that number was 35. While it represents a 4 percent drop in the number of nurses leaving the job in Saskatchewan, it was an 82 percent increase for Ontario.
British Columbia saw the biggest improvement in the number of nurses leaving the health-care industry with 31 nurses out of 100 leaving, a 32 percent drop from 2013.
Manitoba saw the least number of nurses leaving at 29 out of every 100, which was an 11 percent increase from a decade earlier.