A new Statistics Canada report says only 63 per cent of immigrants who came to Canada intending to work as nurses were employed in the field by 2021.

The study looked at immigrants admitted between 2010 and 2020 who identified nursing as their intended occupation. About one in four ended up in lower-skilled jobs or unemployed, even as hospitals face critical staffing shortages.

For many immigrant nurses, the path to licensing is long and costly.

Joanne Aguilar, an internationally educated nurse from the Philippines now working as a personal support worker in Toronto, has been trying to obtain her nursing licence in Canada for about a year. She says she delayed starting the process because, as her family’s breadwinner, she had to focus on working and sending money home.

“I used to hear

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