Sat 8 Mar 2008
Alarm bells sound about aging workers
Alberta Business Economic Financial News , Alberta Jobs and Labour News|
Wed, March 5, 2008 Analysts predict economic trouble if labour shortages aren’t addressed. |
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OTTAWA — Canada’s workforce is aging dramatically as the baby boom generation slides into retirement, census data released yesterday shows, and labour analysts are sounding alarm bells about the economic fallout if shortages in information technology, skilled labour and health care are allowed to materialize.
Statistics Canada says 15.3 per cent of Canadian workers are 55 or older and nearing retirement and for the first time, there are just as many Canadian workers over 40 as under.
The combined force of retiring boomers and declining fertility rates have conspired to erode the ratio of retirees to replacement workers.
In 2006, there were 1.9 Canadians aged 20-34 entering the workforce for every person aged 55-64 leaving it. There were 2.7 replacement workers for every retiree five years ago and, 25 years ago, there were 3.7.
Statistics Canada analyst Geoff Bowlby says it could take the labour market 20 years to correct itself.
“We know the Canadian workforce is getting older. We know that it is inevitable that baby boomers approaching retirement will eventually retire or leave the labour market,” Bowlby said.
“That will have an impact on the labour market well into the future, probably for the next two decades.”
Industry watchers say governments and corporations across the country are unprepared for the labour shortages that will result.
“Right now, many organizations are in denial about the whole issue,” said Linda Duxbury, a labour specialist at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business.
“Any government sector, any public sector, doesn’t matter if it’s municipal, provincial or federal, are going to have real big issues. The other big group that’s going to have huge issues is health care and education.”
Between 2001 and 2006, the country’s overall annual employment growth dominated that of the G7 nations — rising at 1.7 per cent each year.
Alberta’s thriving oil and gas industries and B.C.’s booming construction industry accounted for one-third of the surging employment rate hike.
Researchers have been warning for years about potential labour shortages across Canada, yet labour market analysts say employers and governments have not responded, and they are now predicting a widespread shortage of workers impacting a broad range of occupations.
The year opened with a Conference Board of Canada report warning that 90,000 jobs in the tech industry need to be filled in the next three years to avoid a $10-billion blow to the economy.
A shortage of the right kind of workers can damage a healthy economy because the labour market and economy are so tightly bound. When the ratio of workers arriving to the workplace dips below the number leaving it, it creates a drag on the economy and stagnates growth.
The looming worker shortage is compounded by a glut of middle-aged workers whose knowledge base is quickly becoming obsolete.
“We’re in bit of a transition time,” said Linda Franklin, president of Colleges Ontario, a group representing the province’s 24 colleges of applied arts and technology.
“We have workers who are desperately in need of retraining so that they’re able to do other jobs that are crying out for people. . . . As time goes forward, as the baby boomers retire and as we have fewer young people coming into the workforce, we are going to face a very serious crisis.”
For those entering or established in the workforce, the seller’s market could produce a set of employees who will demand better wages, benefits and working conditions or they will threaten to walk.
Some say the thriving Alberta economy is a microcosm of what’s to come for the nation.
Dan Kelly, Western Canadian vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says several firms there are tolerating corporate theft rather than fire staff they cannot easily replace.
“They’re so desperate to hang onto any staff they can,” he said. “They can’t afford to get rid of them.”
Companies that spent the last three years clamouring for the best workers — or any workers — to fill jobs in the economic boom, find some who worked the oilsands of Fort McMurray have marched over to Vancouver for top-dollar construction jobs ahead of the 2010 Olympics.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has warned that labour shortages are one of the “most daunting economic challenges” Canada will face in coming years.
In January, he said Ottawa needs to find ways to help Canada hold onto its skilled workers and draw talented immigrants to the country to help avert an economic nightmare.
But just a few days later there were media reports about immigrants from France, highly prized and ardently recruited, packing up in droves and going home because they are working at menial jobs and struggling to make ends meet, suggesting employers and governments are only paying lip service to immigrants.
BY THE NUMBERS
Some key numbers culled from the 2006 census on work, education and commuting, released yesterday by Statistics Canada.
- 1.4: Percentage annual decline in manufacturing jobs since 2001. The sector lost 136,700 jobs during the five-year period, with the auto industry in central Canada being hit especially hard.
- 1.7: Canada’s average annual employment growth, in percentage, between 2001 and 2006 — the highest among G7 countries.
- 1.8: Annual percentage increase of retail trade jobs since 2001. More than 1.8 million Canadians work in retail jobs.
- 2.6: Average annual employment growth rate of Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The opening of new diamond mines explains why the territories outstripped the national average.
- 3.0: Unemployment rate among those who took education studies as a post-secondary degree — the lowest rate for any field of study. The next lowest was Bible studies (3.2 per cent).
- 3.4 : Percentage of the country’s total workforce that moved to a different province or territory between 2001 and 2006.
- 15: Percentage of Canadians with less than a high school education.
- 15.8 : Employment rate gap between aboriginal Canadians (65.8 per cent) and non-aboriginals (81.6 per cent). The gap closed from 19.1 in 2001.
- 18.4 : Percentage of Canadians who spent unpaid time caring for seniors.
- 21.2: Percentage of foreign-born workers in the Canadian workforce.
- 24: Percentage increase since 2001 of adults aged 25 to 64 who have a university degree.
- 33: Percentage of workers in Vancouver who speak neither English or French on the job.
- 36.3: Proportion of ministers of religion aged 55 and over.
- 51.9: Median age of a farmer in Canada.
Related Alberta Jobs:
- Canadian jobless rate falls to 33-year low of 5.8 per cent in January
- 2008 Employment Report Highlights Alberta Job Focus
- Manufacturing’s Skilled Labour Shortage
- Shortage in qualified labour hits record high in 2007: CFIB
- Alberta Leads in Unemployment
