Job vacancies at lowest since 2011
Data contradict case of labour shortages
OTTAWA — The case for job shortages in Canada became thinner Tuesday with the most recent data showing vacancies actually fell to 200,000 at the start of the year, meaning there were 6.5 unemployed workers chasing each opening.
Statistics Canada said the total job vacancies for January, down by 22,000 from a year earlier, is the lowest since the agency began collecting data in March 2011. The 6.5 ratio was the second highest, only bettered during that initial month.
The fresh data is just the latest indicator that seems to undercut government and business arguments that Canada is facing a serious skills and labour shortage.
To address the problem, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty last month made the issue a major pillar of his budget, announcing that Ottawa would become more directly involved on how $500 million for skills training is spent.
The initiative would establish a $15,000 grant per person — paid equally by Ottawa, the provinces and employer — for training for specific vacancies.
As well, Canada has seen a ballooning of foreign temporary workers for vacancies employers say they cannot fill. “This is a striking low job vacancy number and it really casts doubt on this idea that we have a labour shortage,” said Erin Weir, a labour economist with the United Steelworkers union.
“I think most of this idea of labour shortages is based on anec- dotes from the business community. They might have a different definition of a labour shortage. Employers might believe that if they can’t get the employees they want at the wages they are prepared to offer — that’s a labour shortage.”
Under attack in the Commons on Monday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated his pledge to reform the foreign worker program, that, according to opposition critics, allowed Canadian firms to bring in 340,000 foreign workers last year. The issue became front-page news last week after Royal Bank was forced to apologize for outsourcing 45 IT jobs to workers from India.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said the temporary foreign worker program had been allowed to degenerate into a source of cheap labour, allowing firms to replace “clerical workers in Ontario, fish plant workers in Newfoundland and Labrador, food service workers in Alberta and miners in British Columbia” with nonCanadians.
“There are still 1.4 million unemployed Canadians. Could the prime minister tell them what specific skills are required to work at a Tim Hortons counter that he thinks Canadian workers do not have?” he asked.
Harper responded that “there are certain cases in Canada where there are absolute shortages of workers” and that he will make “sure the program is reformed so it cannot be misused in any such way.”
A recent Bank of Canada survey of businesses found that the number of firms reporting labour shortages is below the historic average, and wage gains have been modest in Canada, with the exception of some trades in the oilpatch in the West. “The bottom line is we do have shortages, but it’s in certain occupations and certain trades,” said TD Bank chief economist Craig Alexander.
Still, Weir said the better response to specific and isolated cases of skills shortages is to let the market do its work, which would require employers to pay more — either in salaries or training — for a scarce commodity.