Nurse aide or personal support worker in Canada: your Express Entry path

Check your code first

NOC 33102 covers personal support workers and health care aides who give nursing care. Home support work, including "personal support worker – home support", is a different code, NOC 44101, which is TEER 4. TEER 4 work does not count for the Federal Skilled Worker or Canadian Experience Class programs, so make sure your duties match 33102 before you claim it.

Your way into the Express Entry pool

Before a draw can invite you, you need a profile in the Express Entry pool, usually through:

• Federal Skilled Worker. Experience must be in a TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3 job; NOC 33102 is TEER 3.
• Canadian Experience Class. For skilled work experience already gained in Canada.

The healthcare draws

These draws rank only people with recent experience in one of the 37 listed health and social services jobs. The panel above shows the latest one and its cut-off. You need at least 12 months of full-time work (or the same part-time) in this occupation within the last 3 years. The months do not have to be in a row, and the work must match the NOC description of the job.

Do you need to register? It depends on the province

The NOC sets no national licence for this job, and Job Bank tells newcomers to check with the authority where they want to work.

• Alberta: health care aides have been a regulated profession since 2 February 2026, under the College of Licensed Practical Nurses and Health Care Aides of Alberta. You need registration and a valid practice permit, and "Health Care Aide" is a protected title. Applicants from outside Canada complete a substantial equivalence assessment.
• British Columbia: a registry, not a licensing college. Registration is required to work in public health care settings, while private providers can currently hire aides who are not registered. People educated abroad apply in the registry's "Internationally Educated Health Care Professional" category and may need a competency assessment and extra education.
• Ontario: personal support workers are not one of Ontario's regulated health professions.

What nurse aides earn

The panel above shows Job Bank's median hourly wage for this occupation across Canada, with pay by province and region on Job Bank.