Expanding Ontario’s Health Care Workforce
The Ontario government is making additional changes that will break down barriers so that more health professionals can work in Ontario. Doing more to expand the province’s health workforce is a key part of the plan to Stay Open: Health System Stability and Recovery to ensure people can continue to access the health care services they need, when they need.“These changes will bring more health care workers into our health system faster, helping to care for people when they need it,” Sylvia Jones, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health.The changes proposed by the government will support recruitment efforts. It will make it faster and easier for health care professionals trained in Ontario, other provinces and internationally to register and practice in Ontario. The changes that will come into effect immediately are
- Allowing internationally educated nurses to register in a temporary class and begin working sooner while they work towards full registration;
- Making it easier for non-practicing or retired nurses to return to the field. This is done by introducing flexibility to the requirement that they need to have practised nursing within a certain period of time before applying for reinstatement; and
- Creating a new temporary independent practice registration class for physicians from other provinces and territories. This makes it easier for them to work for up to 90 days in Ontario.
Attempting to Solve Ontario’s Tech Workers shortage
Technology workers are in high demand in Canada. There are many opportunities to work in Ontario as a software developer or data scientist. The information and communications technology sector is full of in-demand jobs.An Information and Communications Technology Council report last year estimated that the country’s employers would need to fill an additional 250,000 technology jobs by 2025. In order to combat this, Ontario has multiple streams for foreign workers to apply through and gain work permits to add to Ontario’s labour force. One of them being the Global Talent Stream (GTS). The GTS is designed to process 80 per cent of applicants in two weeks or less. Canadian employers can use it to onboard foreign staff without delay. In order to take advantage of this fast-track work permit, employers must fall under two categories.- Category A: approved companies from a referral partner. Oftentimes this is local, government or semi-government agencies that are mandated to support local economies.
- Category B: for employers who are looking for certain skilled workers whose occupations can be found on the Global Talent Occupations List (some include computer engineers, software engineers and designers, and information system analysts and consultants).
