Estimating Nursing Wage Bill in Canada and Breaking Down the Growth Rate : 2000 to 2010

Even though the nursing professional category (registered nurses [RNs] and licensed practical nurses) made up about one-third of the Canadian health professionals, no study exists about their wage bill, the composition and growth rate of this wage bill. This paper attempts to fill this gap by estimating the nursing wage bill in the Canadian provinces and breaking down the growth rate for the 2000-2010 period, using the 2001 Census and the 2011 National Household Survey. Total wage bill for the nursing professional category in Canada was estimated at $20.1 billion ($17.3 billion for RNs), which suggests that it is as substantial as net physician remuneration. The average annual growth rate of this wage bill was 6.6% for RNs. This increase was mainly driven by real (inflation-adjusted) wage per hour, which was 3.0%, suggesting the existence of a “health premium” of 1.7 percentage points during the study period