Long-term care staffing remains the tightest healthcare segment

Long-term care operators continue to report the highest vacancy and turnover rates in Canadian healthcare, particularly for personal support workers.

Wage increases have helped attraction but not retention; full-time guaranteed hours and predictable scheduling correlate more strongly with staff staying.

Employers investing in supervision and career pathways report the lowest first-year turnover.

In healthcare, attraction and retention have to be solved together. Employers can usually fill a vacancy; keeping the person past the first year is where cost accumulates. Rota control, supervision quality and a visible progression route move retention more reliably than headline pay, and they are easier to describe honestly in a job advert.

Across Canada, provincial policy, licensure and immigration timelines shape hiring as much as demand does, so workforce plans need a longer lead time than employers often assume.

If you are hiring in healthcare right now, the practical takeaway is to shorten your process and be explicit about what is genuinely non-negotiable. Fewer, better matched candidates almost always beat a longer list — and in a market moving this quickly, speed of decision is itself a competitive advantage.