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Health workforce in Canada: Overview

February 13, 2025 — Health care providers play a vital role in protecting and improving the health of people in their communities. CIHI collects supply and demographic data on more than 30 different groups of health care professionals. This information can be used to help plan for a sustainable and equitable health workforce.

Use the section below to learn more about the supply and demographics of 34 health care professional groups in Canada.

Key findings

  • Annual growth varies across Canada’s health care professions.
    • The supply of a few health care professional groupsFootnote i declined between 2022 and 2023. Those with the biggest declines were environmental public health professionalsReference ii (-7.7%), medical laboratory technologistsReference ii (-1.5%) and dental assistantsReference ii (-1.4%).
    • Other professions saw an increase in supply. The fastest-growing groups of professionalsFootnote i in 2023 were psychotherapists/counselling therapistsReference ii (16.3%), nurse practitioners (9.7%) and paramedicsReference ii (5.8%).
  • Women represented more than 75% of selected health care professionals in Canada in 2023Reference iii
    • Women represented more than 95% of the total supply for midwives (99%), dental assistants (98%) and dental hygienists (96%).
    • Men represented the majority of the supply for paramedics (63%), medical physicists (62%) and dentists (56%).
  • Distribution by age also showed notable differences across selected groups of health professionalsReference iv
    • Paramedics were more likely to be younger compared with other health care providers — over 1 in 4 were younger than 30.
    • Physicians were more likely to be older compared with other health care providers — over 1 in 4 were older than 60.

Featured resources

Data tables

These data tables offer comparable information for more than 30 groups of health care professionals by province/territory in Canada.

Download data tables(XLSX)

Methodology

Use this guide to better understand the strengths and limitations of Health Workforce in Canada, 2019 to 2023: Overview data, as well as the data sources and definitions.

View methodology notes(PDF)

Related resources

Footnotes

i.

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For a given professional group, only jurisdictions where data was available for both 2022 and 2023 were included. 

ii.

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Counts may be understated due to the non-regulatory status of the profession across jurisdictions. Please use with caution.

iii.

Back to Footnote iii in text

Health professionals where 2023 data stratified by sex was available.

iv.

Back to Footnote iv in text

Health professionals where 2023 data stratified by age group was available.

 

How to cite:

Canadian Institute for Health Information. Health workforce in Canada: Overview. Accessed April 24, 2025.