Quick answer. If you perform your duties mainly inside a hospital, nursing home or assisted care facility, your NOC code is usually 33102, nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates, which is TEER 3. If you work mainly in clients’ own homes, it is usually 44101, home support workers and caregivers, which is TEER 4. That one digit decides whether your hours count toward the Canadian Experience Class.
Three people work in Sault Ste. Marie.
The first works nights on a long term care floor. She answers call bells, helps residents bathe and dress, serves meals and moves people between bed and chair. The second works at a settlement agency. She takes intake calls, reviews client histories, assesses what each family needs and refers them to housing, language and mental health programs. The third drives to a client’s apartment every morning. She makes breakfast, helps with a shower, changes a non sterile dressing, puts on a load of laundry and keeps the client company until the afternoon.
All three would tell you they are support workers. All three earn broadly similar wages. All three are applying for permanent residence.
They are not in remotely the same position. One of them can apply through the Canadian Experience Class. One of them cannot, no matter how many years she works, because of a single digit in her occupation code. Another would score twelve more points than her colleague in Ontario’s expression of interest pool for doing work that looks almost identical from the outside.
That digit is what this article is about.
If you work as a personal support worker in Ontario, this is not an abstract problem. PSW is a job title, not a NOC code. It maps to at least two different codes depending on where you actually do the work, and picking the wrong one is one of the quietest ways to lose a permanent residence application.
What is a NOC code, and what does TEER mean?
Every job in Canada has a five digit National Occupational Classification code. Two of those digits do almost all the work in an immigration file.
The first digit is the broad occupational category. Health occupations sit in category 3. Occupations in education, law, and social, community and government services sit in category 4.
The second digit is the TEER category, which stands for Training, Education, Experience and Responsibilities. It runs from 0 to 5. TEER 0 is management. TEER 5 usually needs only short work demonstration and no formal education. Everything in between is a ladder.
So for NOC 33102, the broad category is 3 and the TEER is 3. For 42201, the category is 4 and the TEER is 2. For 44101, the category is 4 and the TEER is 4.
Here is the part people miss. No officer reads your job title and assigns you a code. They read the main duties set out in your employment reference letter and compare them against the NOC description. Your employer can call you a “patient care associate”, a “community support specialist” or a “personal care aide”. None of those titles decide anything. The duties do.
This is why the reference letter is not administrative paperwork. It is the document that determines which immigration programs are open to you.
PSW NOC code: 33102, 42201 and 44101 compared
| Compare | 33102 | 42201 | 44101 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official title | Nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates | Social and community service workers | Home support workers, caregivers and related occupations |
| TEER | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| Where the work happens | Hospitals, nursing homes, assisted care facilities, other health care establishments | Agencies, programs, group homes, shelters | The client’s own home, private households |
| Who directs the work | Nurses, hospital staff and physicians | Social services or health care professionals | A home care agency supervisor or nurse |
| Core of the job | Hands on patient care inside an institution | Intake, assessment, referral, program delivery | Personal care and companionship |
| Tell tale duty | Transporting patients by wheelchair or stretcher, sterilizing equipment, carrying specimens between departments | Preparing intake reports, checking eligibility for social benefits | Light housekeeping, laundry, meal preparation, companionship |
| Commonly confused with | 44101, when the work is actually in people’s homes | 41300 Social workers, 41320 Educational counsellors | 44100 Home child care providers |
What is NOC 33102, nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates?
These workers assist nurses, hospital staff and physicians with the basic care of patients. The defining feature is the setting: hospitals, nursing homes, assisted care facilities for the elderly and other health care establishments.
The duties are physical and institutional. Answering call signals. Bathing, grooming, dressing and feeding patients. Moving patients and transporting them by wheelchair or stretcher. Carrying messages and specimens between departments. Making beds and maintaining supplies. Assisting with traction equipment. Cleaning and sterilizing equipment.
Common job titles include health care aide, hospital attendant, orderly, patient service associate, personal care attendant in a medical setting and psychiatric aide. Completion of specialized courses such as CPR and first aid is usually required.
What is NOC 42201, social and community service workers?
This group administers and implements social assistance programs and community services, and helps clients deal with personal and social problems. It is the highest TEER of the three, and it is case work rather than bedside care.
The duties are assessment and coordination. Reviewing client histories and preparing intake reports. Assessing clients’ skills and needs. Checking eligibility for social benefits. Referring clients to community resources. Helping select and admit clients to programs. Implementing life skills workshops, substance abuse treatment programs and behaviour management programs under the supervision of social services or health care professionals. Maintaining program statistics. Sometimes supervising support workers and volunteers.
Job titles here include addictions worker, child and youth worker, group home worker, mental health worker, peer support worker, settlement worker, social services worker and women’s shelter supervisor. A residential counsellor in a group home belongs in this group.
Two boundaries matter. Social workers are 41300, not 42201. Educational counsellors are 41320. If your qualification and registration make you a social worker, the lower code is not where you belong.
What is NOC 44101, home support workers and caregivers?
This group provides personal care and companionship for seniors, persons with disabilities and convalescent clients. The defining feature, again, is setting: usually the client’s own home. Workers are employed by home care and support agencies, by private households, or they are self employed.
Duties include providing care and companionship during periods of incapacitation, convalescence or family disruption. Administering bedside and personal care such as aid in ambulation, bathing, personal hygiene, and dressing and undressing. Preparing meals and assisting clients to eat. Performing routine health related tasks such as changing non sterile dressings, under the general direction of a home care agency supervisor or nurse. Light housekeeping and laundry.
Job titles include home support worker, live in caregiver, personal care attendant in home care, respite worker, attendant for persons with disabilities in home care and family caregiver.
The boundary to watch: home child care providers are 44100, a different code entirely.
How do I know which NOC code fits my job?
If you strip away the job titles, the three codes separate cleanly on three questions.
Where do you physically work? A hospital or nursing home points to 33102. An agency, program or group home points to 42201. The client’s own home points to 44101.
Who directs your work? Nurses and physicians point to 33102. Social services or health care professionals point to 42201. A home care agency supervisor or nurse points to 44101.
What fills most of your day? Hands on patient care points to 33102. Intake, assessment and referral point to 42201. Personal care and companionship point to 44101.
Ontario has written this boundary into its own employer guidance, which tells you how often people get it wrong. Under the Ontario Workforce Priority stream, an employer seeking approval of a 33102 position must have the employee perform duties primarily in a hospital, nursing home, assisted care facility for the elderly or other health care establishment. The guide then says plainly that positions requiring duties primarily at a residential location such as a client’s home or apartment should be classified under 44101. A province does not write a rule that specific unless applications keep arriving with the wrong code on them.
How does your NOC code affect your PR application?
This is the part that converts an administrative choice into a life outcome. Choosing the right code is only half of it, because your experience also has to align with your job offer by TEER, and those rules differ by program.
Does TEER 4 work experience count for Express Entry?
The Canadian Experience Class requires at least one year of skilled work experience in Canada, 1,560 hours, gained in the three years before you apply, while holding authorized temporary status. The work must be paid. Volunteer work and unpaid internships do not count. Self employment does not count. Work done while studying full time, including co op terms, does not count.
And the occupation must fall in TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3. Work in TEER 4 or TEER 5 does not count at all.
Read that against our three workers. The nurse aide in 33102 is TEER 3, so her hours count. The settlement worker in 42201 is TEER 2, so her hours count, and her language requirement is CLB 5 rather than the CLB 7 demanded of TEER 0 and 1 occupations. The home support worker in 44101 is TEER 4. She could work in that role for a decade and arrive at the Canadian Experience Class with nothing that qualifies.
That is not a penalty for doing less valuable work. It is a classification rule with a hard edge, and it is the single most expensive thing most applicants do not know.
How does your NOC code affect the Rural Community Immigration Program?
The rural route handles TEER differently. Rather than excluding lower categories, it requires your work experience to sit in a band related to your job offer.
| If your job offer is | Your work experience must be in |
|---|---|
| TEER 0 or 1 | TEER 0, 1, 2 or 3 |
| TEER 2, such as 42201 | TEER 1, 2, 3 or 4 |
| TEER 3 or 4, such as 33102 or 44101 | TEER 2, 3 or 4 |
| TEER 5 | The same five digit NOC code, and nothing else |
The language bar moves with the TEER too. A job offer at TEER 2 or 3 requires CLB 5. A job offer at TEER 4 or 5 requires CLB 4. So the home support worker who is locked out of the Canadian Experience Class faces the lowest language requirement on the rural route. The same digit that closes one door lowers the bar on another.
Timing matters here. The Rural Community Immigration Pilot closes on 1 January 2027, and anyone holding a community recommendation dated 31 December 2026 or earlier must apply for permanent residence before it expires. The permanent Rural Community Immigration Program has replaced it, and our complete RCIP guide for Sault Ste. Marie covers the rest of the criteria.
How does your NOC code affect the OINP Workforce Priority stream?
Ontario does something the federal programs do not. It scores your occupation directly, twice. We track the draws and the grid in our OINP 2026 guide.
Expressions of interest receive points for the TEER category of the job offer, and separately for the broad occupational category, which is the first digit of the code.
| Scoring factor | 33102 | 42201 | 44101 |
|---|---|---|---|
| TEER | 3 | 2 | 4 |
| Points for TEER | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Points for broad category | 10 | 4 | 4 |
| Total from the code alone | 16 | 10 | 4 |
Twelve points separate the nurse aide from the home support worker before either of them has sat a language test, counted a month of experience or named a wage. In a competitive expression of interest pool, twelve points is the difference between an invitation and another round of waiting.
The work experience requirement differs too. A job offer in TEER 0 to 3, which covers 33102 and 42201, generally needs six months of consecutive, paid, full time work experience in that exact position within the previous twelve months, reduced to three months if you are a recent Ontario graduate. A job offer in TEER 4 or 5, which covers 44101, needs nine months of cumulative experience within the previous two years.
And one specific trap: if your Ontario Workforce Priority job offer is for a 33102 position, the education requirement is not the general one. You need an Ontario college certificate that required at least one year of full time study from an eligible Canadian institution.
Can foreign nursing experience count toward a support worker job offer?
If you qualified as a nurse abroad and are now working in a support role in Canada, both programs have built you a deliberate exception. These are easy to miss and genuinely valuable.
Under the rural route, experience as a registered nurse or registered psychiatric nurse, NOC 31301, can support a job offer in 33102 or 44101, even though the codes differ.
Under the Ontario Workforce Priority stream, experience as a licensed practical nurse, NOC 32101, or as a registered nurse, NOC 31301, can be used toward a job offer in 33102 through the two year cumulative experience route.
If that describes you, your foreign nursing experience is not wasted. It has a defined place in the rules.
What are the most common NOC code mistakes?
One. Letting the employer pick the code. Most employers have never heard of TEER and will write whatever is in the HR system. The code is a legal characterization of your duties and it is your responsibility, not theirs.
Two. Choosing by job title. “Personal support worker” is a real Ontario job title that maps to 33102 or 44101 depending entirely on where the work is performed. The title tells you nothing on its own.
Three. Upgrading to the higher TEER. The temptation is obvious once you see the points table above. Resist it. The code has to describe the work you actually did, and an officer who compares your letter against the NOC description will see the gap.
Four. Ignoring where the work physically happens. This is the most common error in the care sector, and it is why Ontario wrote an explicit rule about it.
Five. Using a single code across a career that changed. People move from home care into a facility, or from front line care into case work. Each period of employment is assessed on its own duties. One code across five years of changing work is a question waiting to be asked.
What should an employment reference letter include?
Because the letter decides the code, it has to carry specific things:
- The exact period of employment, with start and end dates
- A description of your main responsibilities and duties, written to mirror the NOC description rather than a generic job posting
- The corresponding NOC code
- Your total annual salary and benefits
- The number of hours you worked per week
- The employer’s name, signature, full address, telephone number and email address
Supporting evidence matters as much as the letter. Keep copies of T4 slips, Notices of Assessment, work contracts and pay stubs. A letter that says the right things but is unsupported by payroll records is weaker than most people assume.
What happens if you used the wrong NOC code?
The answer depends on whether a decision has been made, and on whether the mismatch looks like an error or a choice.
A code that does not match your duties can cost you the application on straightforward eligibility grounds: the experience you claimed is not experience in the occupation you claimed it in. That is a refusal, and it is recoverable.
The more serious risk is a finding of misrepresentation under section 40 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which applies to directly or indirectly misrepresenting or withholding material facts. A misrepresentation finding carries a five year period of inadmissibility to Canada. That is not recoverable in any ordinary sense, and it attaches to the person, not the application.
If you think your code is wrong, the worst response is to quietly change it on the next form and hope nobody compares the two. Get the duties assessed properly, decide what the correct code is, and address the discrepancy openly with evidence.
PSW NOC code: frequently asked questions
My duties overlap all three codes. Can I pick the highest one?
No. Overlap is normal in care work, but the code follows where the majority of your duties sit. Picking the most favourable code rather than the most accurate one is exactly the pattern that invites a misrepresentation finding.
Does my job title have to match the NOC title?
No. Titles vary enormously between employers. What has to match is the substance of your main duties against the NOC description.
I work for a retirement residence but I visit clients inside their own apartments. Which code?
Look at where you spend most of your time and under whose direction. Ontario’s employer guidance is explicit that positions requiring duties primarily at a residential location such as a client’s home or apartment should be classified as 44101 rather than 33102, even where an institution is involved.
I am a nurse in my home country but I work as a health care aide here. Does my nursing experience count?
Possibly, and in defined ways. Both the rural route and the Ontario Workforce Priority stream contain specific provisions allowing registered nursing experience to support a job offer in a support occupation. Which one helps you depends on the program and the job offer.
Does caring for my own family member count as work experience?
No. Experience must be paid employment. Unpaid family caregiving and volunteer work do not count toward any of these programs, even where the duties are identical.
The practical summary
Your NOC code is not an administrative detail you tidy up at the end. It determines whether the Canadian Experience Class is open to you at all, what language score you need, how many months of experience you must show, and in Ontario, how many points you start with before anything else is counted.
Before you accept the code your employer writes on a letter, read the NOC description yourself. Then read the one next to it. The difference between them is usually one word about where the work happens, and that word may be worth more to your application than anything else in the file.
If you are unsure which of these three codes describes your work, that uncertainty is worth resolving before you apply rather than after. You can read more about the routes it affects on our permanent residence page.
This article is general information and not legal advice. NOC 2021 descriptions and program requirements were verified against canada.ca and ontario.ca on 10 November 2026 and are subject to change. Every application is decided on its own facts. For advice on your own situation, speak with a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant.
Mary Unogwu Ogenyi-Igoche, RCIC-IRB R731653, regulated by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. Ubuntu Worldwide Immigration Consulting Inc., Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. info@ubuntuwic.ca | +1 (705) 255-6279
