N.B. nurses under 35 leaving profession at alarming rate: study

A new report suggests young nurses are leaving the profession at an alarming rate.

For every 100 nurses who enter the field in New Brunswick, 62 under the age of 35 leave the profession, according to a study by the Montreal Economic Institute (MEI).

That’s the second highest rate in the country, determined by data collected by MEI from the Canadian Institute of Health Information. Nova Scotia saw a rate of 57 for every 100 who entered the profession, and 47 in Prince Edward Island.

Newfoundland and Labrador was the only province who had a higher rate than New Brunswick, with an alarming 98 leaving, for every 100 entering.

“With job vacancies tripling nationwide since 2018, this trend is worsening the shortage of health-care workers and putting additional pressure on already over-stretched hospitals,” the research organization said in a statement.

The organization says nursing job vacancies across the country have jumped from 13,178 in 2018 to 41,716 in 2023.

“We’re not able to retain these young nurses and that creates a problem, both now in terms of being able to provide the care that patients need, but also in the future, because the young nurses of today are the experienced nurses of tomorrow,” said MEI economist Emmanuelle Faubert.

A 2025 survey by the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions’ found over one-third of nurses had to work overtime, and 60 per cent experienced some form of violence or abuse while at work.

One in four shows ‘clinical signs of anxiety, depression, or burnout,’ MEI’s release says.

“Nurses have been saying it for years, perhaps even decades, that the working conditions are not sustainable and then we’re seeing the results of this,” Faubert said.

The Susan Holt government has issued two rounds of nurse retention payments over the last year. The first installment of $10,000 was distributed in December of 2024 to nurses working in hospitals, Extra-Mural, Ambulance N.B. and long-term care. The second installment of $5,000 was issued in May.

“Why recruit or why train nurses if people are leaving, and so we are doing a very good job at bringing in more nurses with two new nursing schools, new spots at our nursing schools,” New Brunswick Health Minister Dr. John Dornan.

“But work environment is the most important, nurses sometimes leave because they’re burnt out, and they’re burnt out because there’s too much work on them per nurse, per shift. So if we recruit more nurses, have more nurses on nurses units, emerg, ICU, the floors, people would be more inclined to stay.”

According to the study, all four Atlantic provinces are above the national average of 40 young nurses leaving for every 100 who enter the profession.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Nick Moore.

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