This backgrounder provides an overview of Ontario’s Registered Nurse (RN) workforce, which is broken into RNs in the general class (RN(GC)s) and RNs in

the extended class (nurse practitioners or “NPs”). Unless otherwise specified, “RN” refers to both groups. RPNs refer to registered practical nurses.

Employment figures are snapshots taken at registration renewal time, which takes place over several months around January 1st of each given year. Please note that cross-Canada comparisons are done using data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), which give slightly different figures for Ontario than CNO data (see notes at end).