November 07, 2024

Learn more about nursing trends in Ontario

Learn about the latest nursing trends in Ontario

Three nurses standing together

The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) has released its Nursing Statistics Report 2024 and updated its Nursing Data Dashboard, providing the latest Ontario nursing data available to the public. The report highlights data and trends from the past year, including growth in the overall number of nurses and the number of nurses employed in nursing in Ontario. However, the share of nurses registered with CNO working outside of the province also grew, while the number of nurses holding only a Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) registration declined in 2024.

We collect data from all nurses in Ontario when they first register and every year during our Annual Membership Renewal. As the authoritative source of province-wide nursing registration and employment statistics, we share this information with the broader health system to support health human resource planning in Ontario.

In the past, CNO’s employment and registration data was shared across three different reports. We decided to create the single Nursing Statistics Report 2024 to help emphasize the most significant trends and allow for the identification of patterns across all areas of CNO’s data.

Trends in the report

Growth in the nursing supply: The number of nurses registered with CNO continued to grow in 2024 with 183,763 nurses renewing, representing 3.1% growth year-over-year (the highest on record) and a net gain of 5,579 nurses added to the system in 2024.

Changing mix of nurses within the nursing supply: For the first time in the past 10 years, the total number of nurses with only an RPN registration declined—however, by a small amount, down 0.3% from 2023 to 2024. Meanwhile, nurses registered as Registered Nurses (RNs) or with a Dual RN/RPN registration have seen continual increases (4.5% and 25.5% year-over-year, respectively).

Growth in the nursing workforce in Ontario: There was a 3.6% increase in the nursing workforce (the number of nurses employed in nursing in the province) year-over-year—the largest increase since 2019.

More nurses registered with CNO are working outside of Ontario: The number and proportion of Ontario nurses employed in nursing outside of the province has continued to slowly rise since 2019 (1.6% in 2019 to 2.5% in 2024).

Internationally educated nurses (IENs) contributing to changes: While the majority of new registrants continue to be Ontario graduates (54.8%), gains in the nursing supply are increasingly being driven by newly registered IENs. However, particularly since 2022, IENs have been less likely to renew their registration after their first year of practice compared to Ontario graduates.

Nursing Data Dashboard

We have updated our Nursing Data Dashboard to include the latest 2024 statistics and added additional features. The self-serve dashboard allows users to access CNO data through an easy-to-use portal. The dashboard includes information about registration classes (General, Extended and Non-Practising), demographic data, and employment data, such as areas of practice and working status. New features include geographic data, allowing you to group employment data by Ontario Health region; and filtering data by first-time renewal, letting you compare employment trends between first-year nurses and nurses who have previously renewed with CNO.

Read the 2024 Nursing Statistics report now


About CNO

The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) is the regulator of the nursing profession in Ontario. It is not a school or a nursing association. CNO acts in the public interest by:

  • assessing qualifications and registering individuals who want to practice nursing in Ontario.
  • setting the practice standards of the profession that nurses in Ontario are expected to meet.
  • promoting nurses' continuing competence through a quality assurance program.
  • holding nurses accountable to those standards by addressing complaints or reports about nursing care.

The College was founded in 1963. By establishing the College, the Ontario government was acknowledging that the nursing profession had the ability to govern itself and put the public's well-being ahead of professional interests.

For the latest information, please see our Nursing Statistics page.

Anyone who wants to use a nursing-related title — Registered Nurse (RN), Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) or Nurse Practitioner (NP) must become a member of CNO.

Frequently Asked Questions

Go to the public Register, Find a Nurse, to conduct a search for the nurse. Contact us if you can't find the person you are looking for.

All public information available about nurses is posted in the public Register, Find a Nurse, which contains profiles of every nurse in Ontario. Publicly available information about nurses include their registration history, business address, and information related to pending disciplinary hearings or past findings.

Unregistered practitioners are people who are seeking employment in nursing or holding themselves out as being able to practice nursing in Ontario, but who are not qualified to do so. They are not registered members of CNO. Only people registered with CNO can use nursing-related titles or perform certain procedures that could cause harm if carried out by a non-registered health professional. CNO takes the issue of unregistered practitioners seriously. See Unregistered Practitioners for more information.

To ensure procedural fairness for both the patient (or client) and the nurse, the Regulated Health Professions Act requires that information gathered during an investigation remain confidential until the matter is referred to the Discipline Committee or Fitness to Practise Committee. CNO will not disclose any information that could identify patients (or clients) or compromise an investigation. See Investigations: A Process Guide for more information.

Information obtained during an investigation will become public if the matter is referred to a disciplinary hearing. If a complaint is not referred to a hearing, no information will be available publicly.

See CNO's hearings schedule, which is updated as hearing dates are confirmed. Hearings at CNO are open to the public and the media. For details on how to attend a hearing, contact the Hearings Administration Team.

A summary of allegations and the disciplinary panel outcomes can be found on the public Register, Find a Nurse. Full decisions and reasons are also available.

Where a disciplinary panel makes a finding of professional misconduct, they have the authority to reprimand a nurse, and suspend or revoke a nurse's registration. Terms, conditions and limitations can also be imposed on a nurse's registration, which restricts their practice for a set period. Nurses can also be required to complete remedial activities, such as reviewing CNO documents and meeting with an expert, before returning to practice.

For detailed information see the Sexual Abuse Prevention section.

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