Commitment Under Pressure: The Paradox of Post-Pandemic Workforce Recovery in Canadian Education

Abstract

This study examines how the education sector in one Canadian province has navigated post-pandemic recovery between 2023 and 2025, drawing on cross-sectional survey data from a convenience sample of sector employees in the 2023–2024 (n = 1411) and 2024–2025 (n = 742) school years. The findings revealed selective improvement over time, including increased organizational commitment among teachers and other education workforce members, alongside reduced perceptions of students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs. Teachers indicated no corresponding increases in their perceived frequency of meeting students’ needs, whereas other educator sector employees indicated improvement in this area. In contrast, no year-over-year differences were found in the education workforce members’ and teachers’ stress, coping, well-being or connectedness, and job search behaviours remained high, ranging from 14 to 43%. Guided by the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model, these findings suggest that post-pandemic recovery reflects the establishment of a new and complex baseline. The coexistence of improved commitment with persistent job strain signals a paradox of stability amid depletion. Qualitative responses reinforced this interpretation, revealing how educators adapt to ongoing organizational resource constraints and shifting student needs. Together, the findings extend JD-R-informed understandings of post-crisis workforce adaptation and identify implications for leadership and policy aimed at supporting organizational health and workforce sustainability.

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic fundamentally disrupted education systems worldwide, reshaping how schools operate and how educators experience their work. In the years following, attention has turned from crisis response to questions of resilience and recovery. That said, recovery in education has proven to be uneven and complex. While the education sector has stabilized operationally, educators have continued to bear the evidence of disruption. Extensive research from around the globe has documented increased stress and attrition in teachers (Leger et al., 2024; Robinson et al., 2023; Santamaría et al., 2021), with Canada being no exception to this trend. These indicators suggest that post-pandemic recovery is less about a return to equilibrium and more about a period of reconstruction requiring systemic attention to organizational health and workforce sustainability.

Since 2020, our research program has examined educators’ navigation of post-pandemic recovery, generating 28 research articles that evolved from crisis-focused self-care (for example, Eblie Trudel et al., 2021; Sokal et al., 2020a, 2020b, 2020c) to systemic examinations of organizational well-being (for example, Eblie Trudel & Sokal, 2023, 2024; Sokal & Eblie Trudel, 2023; Sokal et al., 2024a, 2024b). Though documentation of the effects of the pandemic on teachers and education systems is important from a historical perspective, the current study examines post-pandemic recovery in a Canadian province between the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 school years. This research is timely and important as current data related to education sector well-being is essential to planning and implementing evidence-informed actions that restore education sector sustainability and health. Moreover, sufficient time has passed since the pandemic to gather the multiple data points necessary to demonstrate the existence or absence of evidence of recovery trajectories. As educators continue to adapt in the wake of the pandemic, a growing body of literature points to both the challenges of student needs and to a parallel strain on educator capacity (Di Pietro, 2023a, 2023b; Yorio, 2025). These dual demands have exposed structural misalignments such as increasing pressures, inconsistent support systems, resource constraints, and unrealistic workload expectations that continue to erode educator well-being and organizational commitment (Collie, 2025). Recognizing these systemic tensions is critical to informing recovery strategies that are sustainable and responsive to current school-based realities.

1.1. The Job Demands Resources Model

Our research has been guided through the lens of the Job Demands–Resources model (JD-R), which conceptualizes that the health of organizations and the sustainability of their employees can be understood as a balance between job demands and the available resources brought to the workplace by employees and employers (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007, 2014; Bakker & de Vries, 2021). When employees have sufficient resources to address the demands of their jobs, they experience decreased job stress and increased well-being, and their organization is in turn more likely to meet its mandate. However, when job demands grow to levels where they exceed the available resources, employee stress occurs. When increased job demands are not met by commensurate increases in resources over time, the resulting chronic stress experienced by employees can lead to absences and attrition (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007, 2014). As the job demands brought on by the pandemic ease, however, it is important to re-assess, in an ongoing manner, the balance between job demands and resources as they pertain to educators’ well-being and job commitment. Recent meta-analytic evidence confirms that the JD-R model continues to be robust in terms of understanding teacher well-being under these changing conditions (Li et al., 2025). In the present study, we use the JD-R model as an interpretive lens for understanding post-crisis adaptation. The model offers a means to determine whether recovery represents genuine restoration and renewal or merely the reconfiguration of persistent imbalance. After all, a substantial body of research supports the importance of educator well-being to student well-being and academic achievement (S. S. Braun et al., 2020; S. E. Braun, 2021; Hattie, 2009; Oberle & Schonert-Reichl, 2016), providing additional impetus to address educator well-being as a means of meeting educational mandates.

1.2. Lasting Effects of the Pandemic on Students

A significant cause of stress for teachers during the pandemic was the escalating levels of needs exhibited by students at school (Westphal et al., 2022). Research in schools in Canada indicated that in early 2024, students were still exhibiting higher levels of academic, social, and behavioural needs compared to before the pandemic (Sokal et al., 2024b). Alarmingly, over a third of Canadian teachers at that time reported that they were rarely or never able to meet their students’ needs on a daily basis (Sokal et al., 2024b). This is a significant finding as the national Canadian teachers’ survey conducted by EdCan Network in 2024 (Lane & Djurkovic, 2025) showed that the inability to meet students’ needs is a major challenge to teachers’ well-being. Other challenges mentioned in EdCan Network’s 2024 interview data included staffing shortages (73%), unrealistic deadlines (65%), disruptive student behaviour (63%), and long working hours (61%)—all work demands that negatively affect educator well-being. These perceptions from teachers as they relate to student needs and behaviours in particular align with a report on child and youth mental health, which compared the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth data from 2019 to data collected in 2023 (Statistics Canada, 2025). The report showed that the mental health of youth aged 12 to 17 has declined based on both student self-report and parental report over the four years studied.

1.3. Responses to Educator Well-Being Needs

Early in the pandemic, a group of educational experts warned that neglecting the needs of teachers during the pandemic could result in collateral damage to teacher’s well-being and could foster burnout in this sector (Dorcet et al., 2020). Like many countries around the world, Canadian provinces developed a range of responses to address both student and teacher well-being concerns resulting from the pandemic (Volante et al., 2024). A report to the Province of Manitoba during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic indicated that teachers in Manitoba were burning out at rates 20% higher than teachers in other provinces (Sokal et al., 2021), and funding was subsequently provided to the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) to develop programming to address concerns about sector-wide well-being and burnout in that province. Specifically, the resulting Care for All in Education program (careforallineducation.com) provided programming to all education workforce employees—including teachers, educational assistants, administrators, clinicians, support staff, and others—to address the increased stress and burnout brought out by the pandemic. Early in the project, free web-based programming (2021–2022) evolved into free school-based workshops that were heavily subscribed to in Manitoba schools from 2022 to June 2025, reaching more than 10,000 employees. These programs were tailored to individuals from different education sector roles, indicating an awareness that the demands and available resources to meet them varied across job descriptions and schools (Sokal et al., 2024a). Similar to our research program on teacher well-being and workplace mental health interventions, the CMHA programming began with a focus on individuals and the personal resources they brought to the workplace. Later CMHA programming reflected a more systemic understanding and extended to include all employees within schools (Eblie Trudel & Sokal, 2023, 2024; Sokal & Eblie Trudel, 2023; Sokal et al., 2024a, 2024b).

Our research team evaluated the variables associated with well-being in the workplace over the course of the evolving CMHA programs. Early individualized implementation demonstrated that the CMHA programming was successful at fostering a sense of connectedness, resilience, and well-being in education sector employees (Sokal & Eblie Trudel, 2022). However, it was not until CMHA adopted a more systems-focused approach based on the thirteen tenets of psychologically safe and healthy workplaces (Edmondson, 2019) that the interventions began to impact higher level of organizational commitment in educators (Eblie Trudel & Sokal, 2023). Organizational commitment extends beyond the simple intention to stay in one’s job and involves other aspects of commitment such as one’s sense of belonging and commitment to the organization’s vision and values (Ketchand & Strawser, 2001). It includes social–emotional attachment to one’s job, a commitment that considers the time already invested as well as the costs involved in leaving, and a sense of duty that reflects a moral obligation (Akdemir, 2019; Ford et al., 2019). Similar to the collective findings of the CMHA interventions and systemic approaches to well-being, a 2024 EdCan survey (Lane & Djurkovic, 2025) identified that improvement in school-based mental health in teachers was better addressed by changes to workplace conditions—such as those proposed within the approaches based on psychological health and safety (Edmondson, 2019) —rather than solely by professional development focusing on educators’ personal well-being. Likewise, Fleming (2024) and Fox et al. (2021) demonstrated that strategies that address working conditions are most effective in fostering employee well-being, again supporting a more systemic approach to workplace and employee well-being.

1.4. Urgency Due to Predicted Teacher Shortages

Attention to education sector well-being is necessary not only as it relates to the past and recovery from the effects of pandemic, but is also necessary as we look toward the future. Organizational commitment is identified as both an outcome and an indicator of educator well-being. Higher levels of well-being are associated with stronger commitment, whereas chronic stress and burnout reduce educators’ willingness to remain in their roles (Ford et al., 2019; S. S. Braun et al., 2020). Within the JD-R model, organizational commitment emerges when resources offset job demands and sustain workforce engagement (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014). Strengthening this connection clarifies how well-being impacts commitment and is a critical marker of post-pandemic recovery.

UNESCO and the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 have highlighted the urgency and importance of addressing workplace well-being in the education sector in their predication of a global teacher shortage of 44 million teachers by 2030, with 10.8 million of these predicted to occur in North America and Europe (UNESCO & International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030, 2024). Harbingers to teacher disengagement and attrition are already evident in schools across Canada. For example, in 2023 the Toronto District School Board paid CAD 213 million for substitute teachers to cover teacher absences (Tsekouras, 2024). Moreover, Ontario is not the only province in Canada experiencing high levels of teacher absences: research based on data collected from teachers in Alberta, Nova Scotia, as well as Newfoundland and Labrador during the 2022–2023 school year found that high levels of severity and prevalence of teacher stress, burnout, anxiety, and depression predicted increased numbers of sick days, which at times escalated into long-term absences (Agyapong et al., 2024).

Awareness of the predicted teacher shortage—while educators are also demonstrating post-pandemic disengagement through absences—creates what Dara Melnyk calls an inflection point, a time when innovation is necessary to respond to time-sensitive pressures on an educational system (Usher, 2025). Melnyk studies innovations that are “constitutive, not auxiliary—meaning they’re absolutely necessary for that specific [educational organization’s] model to function’” (Usher, 2025). She cites three required conditions for innovation: (1) a cultural ethos where people feel safe to speak up and share ideas; (2) real conversations that lead to planning; and (3) opportunities to try out planned innovations and learn from them. Avoiding or mitigating a global teacher shortage will require a clear understanding of both individual and organizational conditions within the education sector that are fostering low levels of well-being and engagement in the employees. It is only through understanding and addressing these conditions that schools can become healthier and more attractive workplaces.

1.5. Understanding of Stressors on Other Education Sector Employees

A key understanding at this stage of our research involves the recognition that a focus on teachers and their projected shortages is a critical but insufficient range of scope in fostering healthy schools. Teachers function as part of multi-disciplinary teams that work together to meet the needs of students, and similar staffing shortage trends have been reported in Canada in 2024 in all roles in the education sector (Lane & Djurkovic, 2025). Other education sector employees outside the teaching force serve as both demands and resources to teachers within the ecosystems of schools. Ignoring the influence of these individuals will result in a naïve and limited understanding of the interdependent experience of the teaching role and will not fully capture the systemic changes necessary to revitalize schools.

1.6. Research Questions

Building on our growing conception of the teaching role as an inter-connected part of the broader education system, and in light of the predicted global teacher shortage, our study asked whether or not we are making progress in addressing the post-pandemic stressors in the education sector.

In comparing the data as educators navigated from the 2023–2024 through the 2024–2025 school years, we asked the following questions.

• How do the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 school years compare as they pertain to educators’
  • Stress; coping; well-being; connectedness; organizational commitment?
  • Perceptions of students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs and their frequency in meeting them?
  • Job search behaviour by role?
• Regarding teachers specifically, how do teacher stress; coping; well-being; connectedness; organizational commitment; perceptions of students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs and their frequency in meeting them; and their job search behaviours outside the field of education compare between the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 school years?

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Design

After attaining ethics approval (HE14993), all provincial education sector employees who attended CMHA workshops in their schools during 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 were invited to respond anonymously and voluntarily to an online survey before receiving the intervention workshop. The half-day, interactive interventions that followed the data collection were offered by the Canadian Mental Health Association and focused on education sector well-being. Participants used their personal devices to scan the provided QR code, were presented with consent forms online, and then responded online to survey questions for approximately 10 min. The resulting data supported our repeated, cross-sectional design based on a convenience, self-selected sample of education employees participating in CMHA workshops in Manitoba.

2.2. Measures

The measures used to collect data about the participants have been generally consistent in our research program from year to year since 2021 and have been described elsewhere as they relate to the 2023–2024 data. Data collection methods were likewise consistent between 2023 and 2025 in the current study.

Stress and Coping were measured using single-item questions: “How stressful is your job right now” and “How well are you coping with the stress of your job right now?”, which were both measured on a 10-point Likert scale, with 1 being low and 10 being high. Eddy et al. (2019) verified the validity of using single-item responses for these variables.

Connectedness was measured using the Connectedness sub-scale of the Teacher Subjective Well-Being Questionnaire (Renshaw, 2020). This 4-item scale includes statements such as, “I feel like I belong in this school.” Participants respond on a 4-point Likert scale: 1 (almost never), 2 (sometimes), 3 (often), or 4 (almost always) in terms of feeling this way in the last month, with higher means indicating greater connectedness. The Cronbach alpha value for this scale using the current sample was 0.88.

Organizational Commitment was measured using a scale by Collie et al. (2011). This 3-item scale asks participants to respond to the following using a 6-point Likert scale: “If you could go back in time and start over again, would you choose your current career or not?” Higher means indicate greater organizational commitment. The Cronbach alpha value for this scale using the current sample was 0.64.

Well-being was measured using the Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (Stewart-Brown & Janmohamed, 2008). This is a 14-item instrument where participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale. An example item is “I’ve been feeling useful.” Higher means indicate greater well-being. The Cronbach alpha value for this scale using the current sample was 0.92.

Perceptions of Students Needs were measured by asking participants to rate their perceptions of the current levels of (1) academic, (2) social, and (3) behavioural needs of their students compared to before the pandemic. The possible ratings on a 5-point Likert scale included decreased a lot, decreased a little, have not changed, increased a little, and increased a lot. Higher ratings indicate greater student needs.

Perceptions of Frequency in Meeting Student Needs were measured though a question related to the frequency of educators meeting all their students’ needs. The possible ratings on a 5-point Likert scale included never, rarely, sometimes, often, and almost always. Higher ratings indicate a greater frequency of meeting student needs.

Job Search Behaviours were measured though a question related to the type of job search behaviours exhibited by educators over the past months. We asked: “Due to job dissatisfaction, I have searched for a new job over the past few months….” The possible responses were no; yes, within the education sector; and yes, outside the education sector.

Open-ended comments embedded in survey questions also served as a valuable source of insight, offering narrative glimpses into how participants interpreted and responded to shifting workplace realities. These responses enhanced the contextual nuances of educator experiences, allowing the research team to capture depth of expression not easily detected through the quantitative survey questions (V. Braun & Clarke, 2019).

2.3. Analysis Plan

ANOVA was chosen for data analysis over repeated t-tests in order to prevent inflated Type 1 errors. Missing data were handled by omitting these sets from analysis, resulting in slightly smaller samples. Prior to conducting ANOVAs, the data were checked to ensure they met the four assumptions (normality, homogeneity of variance, independence, and random sampling).

3. Results

Given that the data were collected at the beginning of workshops held over two separate school years, we first compared the two sub-samples based on relevant demographic variables (

Table 1. Demographics of Participants by School Year.

Personal Pronouns
	2023–2024		2024–2025
	n	%	n	%
She/her	1066	75.5	522	70.4
He/him	291	20.6	193	26.0
They/them	5	0.4	2	0.3
Other	5	0.4	0	0
Don’t wish to say	44	3.1	25	3.4
Age
25 or younger	62	4.4	27	3.6
26–30	101	7.1	56	7.5
31–40	332	2	170	22.6
41–50	446	31.4	269	35.8
Over 50	456	32.1	224	29.8
Don’t wish to say	25	1.8	5	0.7
Years of Experience
1 year or less	90	6.3	44	5.9
2–5 years	222	15.6	114	15.2
6–10 years	233	16.4	138	18.4
11–15 years	237	16.7	103	13.7
Over 15 years	638	44.9	351	46.8
Don’t wish to say	1	0.1	0	0
Level of Education
Less than a bachelor’s degree	318	22.9	159	21.5
Bachelor’s degree	539	38.7	292	39.6
Some graduate work	264	19.0	147	19.9
Master’s degree	260	18.7	136	18.4
PhD	10	0.7	4	0.5
Work Role
Teacher	525	37.2	268	36.1
Principal/VP	159	11.3	121	16.3
Superintendent/Asst. Supt.	30	2.1	9	1.2
Educational Assistant	419	29.7	189	15.4
Office Assistant	12	0.9	21	2.8
Clinician/Resource/Guidance	55	3.9	43	5.8
Custodian	24	1.7	33	4.4
Other *	186	13.2	55	7.4

* Other includes safety officers, librarians, and government representatives.

).

The results indicated that the data sets in both years were similarly comprised. Both data sets were primarily people who use the pronouns she/her (70–76%), with those who use he/him comprising 21–26% of the sample. The results indicated that the data sets had fairly even distributions across age groups, with over 60% of the participants being over 40 years old, and likewise had similar representations across the categories of years of experience, with over 40% having over 15 years of experience. Moreover, both data sets had similar distributions across the educational attainment categories, with the majority of participants having a bachelor’s degree. The results demonstrate that the majority of the participants in both data sets are teachers, with educational assistants being the second most represented group in 2023–2024 and principals/vice-principals being the second most represented group in 2024–2025.

Once we had a better understanding of the demographic variables across the groups, we turned our attention to the potential changes from the 2023–2024 to the 2024–2025 school year.

Examination of the means presented in

Table 2. Comparison of means by school year.

	2023–2024			2024–2025
	n	Mean	SD	n	Mean	SD
Job Stress	1423	6.50	2.17	751	6.40	2.11
Level of Coping	1422	6.11	2.04	751	6.16	2.09
Well-Being	1423	3.38	0.60	750	3.39	0.61
Connectedness	1423	3.06	0.72	750	3.04	0.77
Organizational Commitment	1231	4.18	1.03	749	4.29	1.21

demonstrated that job stress in the education sector was lower in 2024–2025 compared with 2023–2024 (range in both data sets = 1–10), and coping was also slightly higher in 2024–2025 (range in both data sets = 1–10), resulting in a greater balance of coping resources to meet educators’ stress in 2024–2025. Well-being (range = 1.43–5 in 2023 to 2024 and range = 1–5 in 2024–2025) and connectedness (range = 1–4 in both data sets) were consistent across years. Organizational commitment (range = 1–6 in both data sets) increased in 2024–2025 compared to 2023–2024. Taken together, these findings show stability across most indicators, with organizational commitment as the only variable demonstrating meaningful improvement.

We conducted an analysis of variance that revealed non-significant differences for comparisons between almost all matched variables between 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 including levels of stress, coping, well-being, and connectedness. The only significant difference between variables when the years were compared was in organizational commitment (F(1,1978) = 5.36, p = 0.02, n² = 0.003), with higher organizational commitment within the education sector demonstrated in 2024–2025.

We then turned to examinations of educators’ perceptions of their students’ needs as well as the frequency of meeting them, given the influence these factors have been shown to have on educator well-being (Lane & Djurkovic, 2025; Westphal et al., 2022).

Table 3. Comparison of means in perception of student needs by school year.

	Academic		Social		Behavioural
	2023–2024	2024–2025	2023–2024	2024–2025	2023–2024	2024–2025
	n/%	n/%	n/%	n/%	n/%	n/%
Decreased a lot	3/1.2	24/3.3	3/1.2	13/1.8	1/0.4	16/2.2
Decreased a little	9/4.9	23/3.1	5/2.1	29/4.0	5/2.1	21/2.9
No change	13/5.3	70/9.5	9/3.7	65/8.9	14/5.8	70/9.5
Increased a little	37/15.2	171/23.2	48/19.8	157/21.4	41/16.9	156/21.2
Increased a lot	149/61.3	384/52.2	147/60.5	404/55.2	151/62.1	411/55.9
Not applicable	32/13.2	64/8.7	31/12.8	64/8.7	31/12.8	61/8.3
Total	243/100	736/100	243/100	732/100	243/100	735/100

provides the number and percentage of teachers indicating their perceptions of their students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs compared to these same needs before the pandemic. Please note that the non-applicable response applied to those who were not responsible for meeting students’ needs in these areas, and those who were not teaching prior to the pandemic.

Examination of the distribution of responses indicated that the percentage of participants reporting that students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs had increased “a lot” since the pandemic was larger in 2023–2024 than 2024–2025. The percentage of participants reporting that academic, social, and behavioural needs increased “a little” since the pandemic grew from 2023–2024 to 2024–2025. Together, these data suggest that educators’ perceptions of current student needs decreased from 2023–2024 to 2024–2025. Despite this progress, it should be noted that in 2024–2025, over 50% of participants still perceived large increases in all three areas of needs when compared to pre-pandemic levels.

An analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed significant differences in the comparisons of students’ levels of needs between 2023–2024 and 2024–2025. In all cases, the perceived student needs were lower as time progressed from 2023–2024 to 2024–2025. Specifically, perceptions of academic needs (F(1, 977) = 11.92, p < 0.001, n² = 0.01), social needs (F(1, 973) = 10.56, p = 0.001, n² = 0.01), and behavioural needs (F(1, 976) = 12.63, p < 0.001, n² = 0.01), when compared to pre-pandemic levels, were lower in 2024–2025 than in 2023–2024. Thus, while student needs remained elevated, educators perceived measurable improvement in all domains of need over time.

Table 4. Comparison of educators’ perceived frequency of meeting student needs by school year.

	2023–2024		2024–2025
	n	Percentage	n	Percentage
Never	21	8.6	76	10.2
Rarely	68	28.0	133	17.9
Sometimes	91	37.4	230	30.9
Often	50	20.6	143	19.2
Almost always	13	5.3	95	12.8
Don’t work with students	68	9.1
Total	243	100.0	745	100.0

presents the distribution of educators’ perceived frequency of meeting student needs by school year. The percentage of participants who reported never meeting their students’ needs increased between 2023–2024 and 2024–2025, although the percentage reporting they rarely met their students’ needs decreased over this same time period. Combined reporting of rarely or never meetings students’ needs in 2023–2024 was 36.6%, whereas it was 28.1% in 2024–2025. Likewise, in 2023–2024, 25.9% of educators reported that they were often or almost always meeting students’ needs, whereas 32% of educators reported that they were often or almost always meeting students’ needs in 2024–2025. Together, these findings suggest that educators are more often meeting their students’ needs in 2024–2025 than in the previous year.

An analysis of variance confirmed significant differences between educators’ frequency of meeting students’ needs in 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 levels. Educators’ perceived frequency of meeting student needs was lower in 2023–2024 than in 2024–2025 (F(1, 986) = 223.80, p < 0.001, n² = 0.02), indicating improvement over time.

An examination of the means indicated that the percentage of educators searching for new jobs within the section has remained consistent from 2023–2024 to 2024–2025. However, the percentage of those looking for new jobs outside the sector has grown. An analysis of variance procedure failed to demonstrate statistical significance when these differences were compared. Therefore, despite increased commitment, job search behaviours did not change significantly across the two years (see

Table 5. Comparison of job search behaviour by school year.

	2023–2024		2024–2025
	n	Percentage	n	Percentage
Have not searched	482	67.6	474	64.1
Searching within sector	105	14.7	107	14.5
Searching outside sector	126	17.7	158	21.4
Total	713	100.0	739	100.0

).

3.1. Teachers and the Predicted Shortage

Given the prediction of impending teacher shortages, we investigated changes in the relevant variables in teachers as a separate group using an analysis of variance comparing the 2023–2024 to 2024–2025 responses. We compared the teachers’ data related to their stress; coping; well-being; connectedness; organizational commitment; perceptions of students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs; frequency in meeting their students’ needs; and job search behaviours. An analysis of variance revealed significant differences in organizational commitment and perceptions of students’ needs in all three areas, mimicking the same changes in the larger group that included diverse education sector workers. The means indicated that all statistically significant changes in teachers (organizational commitment and perceptions of students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs) showed improvement in 2024–2025 when compared to 2023–2024. As indicated in

Table 6. Analysis of variance for teachers by school year.

	2023–2024	2024–2025
	Mean	Mean	d.	F	Sig.	n2
Organizational Commitment	4.07	4.24	1, 701	4.15	0.042.	0.006
Academic Needs	4.74	4.40	1, 399	11.44	<0.001	0.03
Social Needs	4.81	4.41	1, 399	17.64	<0.001	0.04
Behavioural Needs	4.79	4.44	1, 399	11.14	<0.001	0.04

, other variables (stress, coping, well-being, connectedness, frequency of meeting students’ needs, and job search behaviours) showed no significant differences year over year.

In summary, across the two years, three year-over-year patterns stood out. First, organizational commitment significantly increased for both the overall sample and for teachers specifically. Second, perceived student needs (academic, social, and behavioural) declined across the workforce. Finally, stress, coping, well-being, and connectedness remained unchanged, suggesting that some aspects of strain have stabilized rather than improved. These findings together indicate a mixed pattern of recovery.

3.2. Open-Ended Survey Comments

Open-ended responses embedded within the survey were analyzed inductively using reflexive thematic analysis (V. Braun & Clarke, 2019). Following multiple readings, the research team independently coded the data, met to compare interpretations, and resolved discrepancies through discussion to ensure coherence. Coding was conducted manually without qualitative software, identifying recurring patterns across responses. Five interrelated themes offered a deeper understanding of the challenges educators continued to face in the post-pandemic education environment. This inductive approach provided nuanced insights that supplemented the quantitative findings.

First, respondents consistently reported challenging student needs, in particular with social–emotional development, self-regulation, and academic readiness. Educators described a rise in behavioural challenges among younger students, citing examples such as emotional outbursts, separation anxiety, and delays in basic developmental milestones. One respondent shared, “Our youngest students have our highest needs in the building. We have many heavy criers, more kids entering the school not (toilet) trained, lots of violent students, and a LOT of high anxiety kids.” Another respondent noted, “The emotional outbursts and lack of basic readiness feel very different from pre-pandemic groups.” This narrative reflected a widespread concern that the most vulnerable learners would be entering schools with unmet foundational needs.

Second, survey participants emphasized insufficient systemic support as a persistent barrier to addressing these challenges. Despite heightened complexity occurring in classrooms, educators found that staffing levels, mental health resources, and program supports remained static or had even declined. One teacher remarked, “Mental health, behaviour, and students with exceptional needs have increased tremendously recently, and the support has not changed to reflect this at all.” A colleague added, “We’re expected to manage complex needs with no additional EA support or clinical time.”

Third, several comments pointed to growing inequities between students and between families. Educators highlighted a widening gap between those with access to external supports and those without. One educator noted, “Many (non-verbal) students do not have access to AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) devices due to wait times. Many ‘age out’ and now they are [placed at the] bottom of the list again.” Several respondents also offered the reminder that, while “Some families can get private assessment within months, others wait years and the gap is widening.”

Fourth, the emotional toll on educators emerged as a theme. Many respondents described a sense of helplessness, fatigue, and emotional depletion. One educator wrote, “I am expected to do more with less, and it’s never enough. You feel like you’re failing the kids.” Another elaborated, “The emotional exhaustion is huge. Its just not the same work anymore.”

Finally, an intersecting theme revealed that post-pandemic complexity is no longer an exception but the new norm. Respondents frequently challenged the notion of a return to pre-pandemic conditions, instead suggesting the need for a systemic realignment to reflect the enduring shifts in student needs, educator roles, and school functioning. As one educator expressed, “These aren’t short-term behaviours. This is a shift in the baseline of what students need and how schools have to respond.” They reinforced, “Student needs and behaviours have changed permanently. Schools have to adapt.”

4. Discussion

The findings of the current study suggest that there is a mixed response to education sector post-pandemic organizational health when comparing the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 school years. The results showed that some variables have remained static over the period under examination. These include the educator workforce members’ and teachers’ stress, coping, well-being, connectedness; the educator workforce members’ and teachers’ frequency of job search behaviours inside and outside the sector; and teachers’ frequency of meeting students’ needs.

In contrast, variables that demonstrated a significant difference from 2023–2024 to 2024–2025 all showed improvement: teachers’ and other educator workforce members’ organizational commitment; teachers and other educator workforce members’ perceptions of their students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs; educator workforce members’ (but not teachers’ specifically) perceptions of their frequency in meeting their students’ needs.

Educators in general and teachers specifically demonstrated almost identical responses when comparing the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 school years. Only one variable indicated significant differences between the two employee groups: whereas educators in general perceived greater frequency of meeting student needs over time, teachers did not. In general, the findings are unsurprising in most respects, such as the alignment between the educator workforce’s increased organizational commitment over time, alongside their perceptions of decreased student needs. However, the findings also raise two interesting and unexpected questions.

First, given that teachers perceive that students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs have decreased from 2023–2024 to 2024–2025, why do teachers as a group not perceive any significantly greater frequency of meeting their students’ needs in 2024–2025 than they did in 2023–2024? This finding is especially perplexing when we consider it alongside the finding that education sector workers in our sample collectively also perceived that students’ academic, social, and behavioural needs had decreased from 2023–2024 to 2024–2025, yet they perceived that they had an improved frequency of meeting these needs in 2024–2025. While not investigated within our study specifically, one possible explanation can be found in the 2024 survey data offered by Lane and Djurkovic (2025), who found that challenges to teachers’ well-being in 2024 included job demands outside of students’ needs specifically, such as staffing shortages, unrealistic deadlines, and long working hours.

This explanation is plausible within the JD-R model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007, 2014) that frames our research program. That is, although the demands of students’ needs have decreased over time, there are other demands that have grown or persisted, competing for the resources that teachers need to meet students’ needs. Importantly, over 50% of educators in 2025 still perceive that the needs of students have grown “a lot” when compared to the levels before the pandemic, and the resources that are continually depleted in meeting these needs as well as meeting other job demands have resulted in no relief to the stress experienced by teachers.

This tension is further illuminated by open-ended responses in which educators described continuing struggles with developmental readiness, behaviour, and social–emotional regulation, as well as trauma-informed needs. These are areas that may not be fully captured by items in the surveys. As a result, many educators expressed feeling under-supported and emotionally depleted despite statistical trends suggesting improved conditions. In this way, the qualitative data helps explain why teachers may not have perceived an improvement in the frequency of meeting students’ needs even if the general intensity had lessened. Ultimately, the nature of student needs has shifted in ways that are now persistent, complex, and emotionally taxing.

This pattern suggests that greater commitment does not necessarily reflect renewed well-being, but instead indicates a form of perseverance that persists without corresponding recovery. Viewed through the lens of the JD-R model, the combination of increased commitment, steady stress, and persistent complexity reflects a pattern we interpret as resigned resilience, a term used informally in post-pandemic discourse on educator well-being to capture persistence amid exhaustion. Conceptually, resigned resilience reflects neither recovery nor flourishing, but a stabilization of functioning under chronic strain, consistent with JD-R predictions when demands remain high and resource provision remains insufficient over time. We believe this term captures educators’ willingness to remain engaged and uphold professional responsibilities despite a diminished capacity for restoration. Rather than signalling recovery, this finding indicates a shift toward a new baseline in which chronic demands and limited resources are the norm.

The stability of stress, coping, well-being, and connectedness suggests that educators may have reached a plateau rather than a point of recovery. According to JD-R dynamics, this indicates that reductions in student needs alone are insufficient to reduce educator strain without corresponding increases in systemic resources. From a policy perspective, this paradox highlights the need for sustained investment in system-level resources. Policy responses might include province-wide mental health funding, coordinated staffing strategies, and workload expectations that align with the JD-R model. Ensuring adequate access to educational assistants, school clinicians, and collaboration time would assist in restoring the balance between demands and resources. Local and provincial data collection and monitoring could also support early identification of emerging trends resulting in targeted resource allocation

Second, why has organizational commitment improved for both teachers and other education sector members, and yet job search behaviours have remained constant from 2023–2024 to 2024–2025 for both groups? This finding is perplexing given that organizational commitment is often understood as willingness to stay in one’s job (Ratnasari, 2021). In order to understand this finding, we reviewed the three items in the scale used to measure organizational commitment (Collie et al., 2011). The items included (1) If you could go back in time and start over again, would you choose a career in education? (2) How long do you plan to stay in your current job setting/school? (3) How long do you plan to stay in your current role/occupation? Lower scores on this scale indicate lower organizational commitment. It is possible that the past job search actions do not predict the future intentions that frame the second and third item of the scale. Indeed, in other research, only 40% of teachers who intended to leave their jobs actually left (Zamarro et al., 2021). This disconnect between intention and action may explain this somewhat unexpected finding. Alternatively, averaging the three items, which together encompass the past as well as items related to both future job and career changes, may mask the intention to leave one’s job—for example, a low intention to change careers but a high intention to change jobs may cancel each other out through calculation of the mean. Finally, the Cronbach alpha reported for this scale was 0.64, which just meets the acceptable level according to Frost (2020) but fails to meet the minimum acceptable standard according to DeVellis (2003). A higher alpha value would provide better reliability for this variable’s findings. Moreover, the effect size of the gains in organizational commitment year over year is small. Again, it is difficult to have confidence in and to explain why significantly higher organizational commitment over time is not reflected in significantly decreased job search behaviours outside the field for both teachers and other education sector members. In light of these realities, we must temper our interpretations of the increase in organizational commitment.

Future research that includes qualitative data in the form of in-depth interviews may assist in greater clarification of the unexpected findings. Moreover, future research that explores job demands in addition to student needs will provide a more detailed picture of the work life of teachers and other education sector members, in turn clarifying processes for rebalancing the job demands and resources of specific roles. In particular, there is a need for studies that examine both system-level structures and individual educator experiences in tandem, recognizing that organizational conditions and personal well-being are interdependent. Research of this nature could support more specific and sustainable interventions that not only alleviate systemic pressures, but enhance individual capacity for resilience, connection, and professional fulfilment.

All research studies have limitations, and our study is no exception. Although we presented and compared demographic data to demonstrate the consistency between the two samples used in this study and the data set were substantial in size, the sizes were unequal and a potential confounding factor is the difference in the composition of the two data sets in terms of educator roles, which presents a limitation to the study’s findings. It is possible that the differences found between the years studied are a result of an uneven representation of roles. A longitudinal design with more balanced roles would allow for a more refined analysis of differences specific to each educator role. Moreover, the participants in both data sets were teachers and other education sector workers whose employer had contracted for the free CMHA workshop, and these employers may have been different from those employers who did not. Although most measures used in this study were multiple-item, robust measures, stress, coping, perceptions of student needs, and frequency of meeting student needs were measured using single-item measures. While defensible, these types of items carry their own limitations. In particular, the reliability of the Organizational Commitment measure was slightly under the accepted range (DeVellis, 2003) of 0.70 and findings related to this measure should be interpreted conservatively. Additionally, the study was not longitudinal and therefore it carries the limitations of a cohort design. Finally, the data were generated through self-report, which again carries its own risks.

5. Conclusions

Despite its limitations, the current study provides evidence for both optimism and concern about the health and sustainability of the education workforce moving forward post-pandemic. It is encouraging to see improvements in teachers’ and other educational sector workforce members’ organizational commitment since 2023. It is also reassuring to see that the perceptions of the challenges involved in their students’ needs have decreased over time. However, a lack of change in levels of stress, connectedness, well-being, and job search behaviours in both teachers and other education sector members as we emerge from the pandemic crisis indicates that we have not returned to an equilibrium in terms of school health or workforce sustainability. The integration of qualitative and quantitative findings highlights that recovery is not occurring as a return to previous norms but as the emergence of a new baseline of complexity. Educators described sustained emotional exhaustion amid ongoing gaps in supports and resources, even when quantitative indicators suggest modest improvements. This combination of findings reflects our adoption of the term resigned resilience, in which educators remain committed and professionally engaged despite limited opportunities for recovery. We argue that this phenomenon is an interpretive pattern situated within the JD-R model and reflects a paradox in the process of recovery: commitment without restoration or renewal.

Although there is little doubt that the immediate crisis of the pandemic has passed, the ongoing depletion of resources experienced by education sector workers during that time, coupled with the continued demands of post-pandemic recovery, has resulted in job search behaviours in 19.1% to 43.6% of those in education sector roles. Our findings showed that 20% of teachers in our sample in 2025 were looking for jobs outside the education sector. These data echo the warnings from UNESCO and International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 (2024) about a global teacher shortage, emphasizing that these concerns are not isolated to international contexts but are evident in Canadian schools and are extending to other key education sector roles. Systemic attention to organizational health of all education sector groups will be essential to workforce sustainability, addressing inequities, and supporting recovery of a workforce still navigating the enduring impact of pandemic disruption.