Guiding hand needed for skills shortage

Times have rarely been better for the pursuit of full employment for Canadians — that’s of course assuming we do things right. We see it already, but over the next few years we will see more and more headlines proclaiming a skills crisis or a labour shortage. The two are quite different, and a country can, and indeed Canada has, a shortage of some critical skills — but at the same time does not have a labour shortage. With more than one million Canadians unemployed and several hundred thousand working in part- time jobs because they cannot find full- time jobs, we cannot talk of a labour shortage. But with jobs begging in the Alberta oil sands, in many construction trades across Canada and in nursing in our hospitals, there clearly are skills shortages.

At a conference this week in Halifax, federal and provincial officials in the Labour Market Information Group discussed challenges facing our labour markets. One is the aging of our population, which over the next decade will see the growth in the labour force come to a virtual halt while the number of Canadians exiting the workforce through retirement will escalate.

It is this reality that opens the way to a serious pursuit of full employment. It means we will have the opportunity, with the right labour market information and education and training strategies, to enable everyone to work. While immigration can help meet some skills shortages and provide some additional workers, it will not alter the fact that Canada is an aging society. So while continuing to welcome immigrants, we really have to focus on improving the skills and capabilities of people already here to meet future skills needs. Moreover, if we are really clever, we can pursue economic policies that encourage high- value jobs in Canada, based on high levels of productivity. But this also requires much greater engagement by business. As Jayson Myers, chief economist for the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters association, told the Halifax meeting, businesses have to make human resource planning part of their strategic planning.

Today, he complained, most businesses treat their human resources vice- president or director as someone to manage the payroll properly and to ensure the company is complying with government regulatory requirements. But skills and capabilities could become the critical competitiveness issue in the future, with companies forced to go offshore if talent is not available in Canada. Companies have to do a much better job of forecasting employee needs and the kinds of skills required, providing greater workplace training and skills upgrading, change current practices that exclude older employees from training, and ending age discrimination against older workers seeking jobs. Companies will also have to do a much better job of sharing information on future employee requirements and needed skills or capabilities so that the education system can respond.

Cities also have a key role to play. Last month, the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development held an important conference in Montreal that underlined the key role cities can play in identifying local skills needs, sharing this information with local schools, colleges, universities and apprenticeship or technical institutes, in working with local employers to create training opportunities, and addressing local poverty issues by providing skills training and workplace information to unemployed residents.

All of this is about creating an active society that strives to create opportunity for all. But getting good information is a necessary first step. Some provinces, such as Alberta, Quebec and Nova Scotia, are working hard to develop skills strategies, starting with serious efforts to identify current and future skills requirements and matching this information with education and training programs. This information is also available to individuals to help them make education and training decisions. Good labour market information, as Andrew Sharpe of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards told the Halifax gathering, promotes labour market efficiency by providing a better match between skills needed and people with skills, increases the effectiveness of the educational system by sending the right signals on skills needs, and promotes social equity by encouraging those on welfare to move into the workplace and also by encouraging lifelong learning. It also helps immigrants enter the work world.

Since we know the direction of our demographic future, it is clear that the path to a sustainable and prosperous society will depend on how well we develop and use our greatest resource, our people. The benefits from doing it right are enormous. David Crane’s column appears on Friday. He can be reached at crane@ interlog.com by email or by fax at 416-926-8048.