Employers having tough time filling vacancies

Not enough applicants and insufficient qualifications cited as major barriers

WATERLOO REGION — Hundreds of companies in Waterloo Region have jobs to fill, but they’re having an increasingly tough time finding the right candidates for those jobs.

According to a new report from the Workforce Planning Board of Waterloo Wellington Dufferin, about 65 per cent of 542 employers surveyed last year had positions that were difficult to fill during the previous 12 months.

“From an employers perspective it’s incredibly frustrating to know that positions you used to fill with no problem are now harder to fill, and you have to spend more money to recruit people,” said Charlene Hofbauer, the planning board’s chief executive officer.

That’s an increase from 59 per cent of employers who reported difficulty hiring workers a year earlier. The survey includes responses from nearly two dozen sectors, including manufacturing, retail, construction, health care, finance and insurance, transportation, and culture.

“It’s not like employers in one industry are having problems, it’s in multiple industries,” Hofbauer noted.

Statistics Canada reported that about 300,000 people in this region were employed as of Sept. 2019, out of a labour force of about 318,000 people.

The top five barriers to finding the right recruit cited by employers were: not enough applicants (54 per cent); lack of qualifications (48 per cent); lack of motivation/attitude (44 per cent); lack of experience (39 per cent); and lack of technical skills (36 per cent). Employers could select multiple reasons.

Luke Shantz, president of Arcadian Projects in Baden, is one of those employers looking to hire. The multi-trade contracting company focuses on renewable energy projects and Shantz wants to hire six people for plumbing, HVAC and millwright positions.

“There’s a major shortage of trades folks across the board,” Shantz said. “We’re in a busy, hectic market in the tri-cities ... we run ads, use the online ( job) platforms, but there’s only so many people out there and we have a big void to fill.”

Arcadian currently employs about 50 tradespeople and several other office staff and project managers.

Manufacturing and accommodation/food services both had the hardest time filling jobs, according to the survey, with 80 per cent of respondents in both sectors reporting difficulty. Construction came in at 76 per cent, while transportation and warehousing was 75 per cent.

Despite the difficulties, thousands of positions were filled by employers, according to the survey — 88 per cent of respondents said they hired at least one person during the year, resulting in 14,249 jobs (5,326 of them full-time).

Yet 76 per cent also reported at least one ‘separation’ that saw an employee leave the company either because they quit, were laid off or retired. About 7,400 jobs were impacted by these separations.

The inability to find and hire the right people seriously impacts succession planning, Hofbauer said.

The survey found half of all companies didn’t have a succession plan, down from 55 per cent a year earlier.

“I think that’s a little bit concerning. If you don’t have a succession plan and you’re not skilling the people you have, when vacancies happen you have to find that talent in the market and it’s going to cost you more and take you longer,” Hofbauer said.

The Workforce Planning Board is currently accepting survey answers from employers in the region. Go to workforceplanningboard.com for a link to the online survey.