Skills mismatch questioned in Canadian labour study
Budget watchdog disputes claims by government
OTTAWA — It’s not unusual for Canada’s budget watchdog to butt heads with the federal government over spending issues.
Less so when it comes to policy positions.
But now, the Parliamentary Budget Office is wading into the debate over suggestions the country is suffering from labour shortages and mismatched skills — leaving us with too many vacancies and too few people able, or willing, to fill them.
While Ottawa insists these problems exist — and has launched programs to combat them — the PBO says there is “little evidence” to back up those claims.
The findings of Tuesday’s report, titled Labour Market Assessment 2014, go against the grain of the government’s position that jobs are remaining vacant because of a lack of adequate homegrown skilled employees where they are needed.
“There is little evidence to suggest a national labour shortage exists in Canada, although there appear to be regional and sectoral pockets of labour market tightness,” the report says, pointing to Saskatchewan as an example of one of those markets.
The PBO report — the first to target employment issues — states “some skills mismatch is normal, there is no evidence in support of a more acute national skills mismatch today than prior to the 200809 recession.”
The government has made skills mismatch one of it driving issues in recent labour-market policy moves, such as its Canada Jobs Grant program.
The program has yet to be fully implemented because of disputes with the provinces over funding and local decision-making.
Another controversial federal program focuses on the recruitment of foreign temporary workers to fill vacant jobs.
Kevin Page, who stepped down as Parliamentary Budget Officer a year ago, put a combative face on the public agency — in particular, when reporting on the shape of the government’s massive budget deficit.
In this case, the PBO, now headed by Jean-Denis Fréchette, is not alone in attempting to debunk Ottawa’s labour-market assessment. In the past year, a number of private-sector economists have also challenged the government’s view on mismatched skills.
Alexandra Fortier, a spokesperson for Labour and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, on Tuesday didn’t question the big-picture conclusion of the PBO report, but its regional focus.
“The lack of evidence of a national labour shortage or skills mismatch in Canada does not rule out regional- and sector-specific labour shortages or skills mismatches,” Fortier said in an email.
“There is a paradox of too many Canadians without jobs in an economy of too many jobs without workers.”
Supporters on both sides of the issue point to the difference in interpretation of the data collected, rather than the data itself.
Sean Read, vice-president of the Progressive Contractors Association, said “the problem is we’re getting lost in the national aggregate data, and that’s betraying a reality on the ground at the regional levels in the key sectors — the key sectors that are really driving or economy.”
“There is not a skills shortage in the Maritimes. There is not a skills shortage in southern Ontario,” Read said.
“Let’s face it, B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan are where the Canadian economy is at these days. Those are the ones that are feeling the pinch on the skills shortage.”
He added: “The problem is not every trades person in Eastern Canada is willing to move West.”
Mostafa Askari, assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, said the report did crunch both regional and national numbers, along with trends in wage gains across the country.
“Typically, if you have a skills shortage, or a skills mismatch, wages have to respond as a market signal. But we just don’t see that signal in the data,” he said.
“We don’t really see any conclusive evidence that would point you to a major labour shortage or a major skills mismatch.”