Prince Edward Island (PEI) has found success in filling its labor shortage in nursing with overseas workers, recruiting more than 100 new hires in the field. The province has recruited 11 new internationally educated health workers and 96 nurses trained abroad, as per Health PEI.

They agency’s director of talent management, Ryan White, said that “they’ve signed a conditional job-offer contract with a commitment to come to PEI through 2023.”

His aim, according to CBC News, is to bring 10 internationally educated nurses every month to PEI, with the new recruits receiving government assistance and temporary housing to settle in the province.

PEI may need 200 nurses by mid-2025 due to the labour shortage created by high turnover rates and retirements. White says that so far, that number is on track to being achieved.

Canada has been experiencing a problem with the number of nurses since before the pandemic, with a 2018 analysis predicting a shortage of 117,600 nurses by 2030.

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COVID-19 brought forth the essential need to fix that issue. As per a 2019 survey of nurses conducted by the CFNU with researchers from the University of Regina, 83 per cent of nurses felt that their institution’s core health care staff was insufficient to meet patient needs, and 73 per cent said that their institutions were regularly over capacity.

Moreover, nurses are retiring at record rates. A 2021 survey of nurses conducted by the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario revealed that 4.5 per cent of nurses in Ontario planned to retire now or immediately after the pandemic. At least 13 per cent of nurses aged 26-35 reported being “very likely to leave the profession” once the pandemic dies down.

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“We want to fill our vacancies as quick as we can,” he also said.

“But we also don’t want to overwhelm the system either.”

In the midst of Canada’s housing crisis, new nursing recruits are being given temporary housing for 60 days.

While it is not easy to make judgements on retention rates this early in the international hiring process, White said that the trend should stay at around a 19 per cent drop out – a number he got from the Dubai cohort’s drop-out rate.