by Jeff Nagel
A deepening labour shortage is only poised to get worse as B.C.’s population ages and the province struggles to attract new workers, a regional dialogue heard Wednesday. The 600,000 seniors now in B.C. will nearly double to almost 1.2 million aged 65-plus over the next 20 years, speakers told a GVRD-led forum on labour and immigration issues in Surrey. Barely 100,000 new people are projected to enter the labour force to offset the loss. Delaying retirement is one strategy to retain workers, economist Roslyn Kunin said. Premier Gordon Campbell has already announced plans to remove mandatory retirement at age 65 in B.C. “Freedom 85 has an nice ring to it,” Kunin quipped. She said another strategy is increased use of technology — especially things like automated retail checkouts — that allow companies to get greater productivity out of the workers they have. Intensifying the challenge is the boom in construction that’s drawing workers away from other sectors. The value of major construction projects under way has climbed from $65 billion two years ago to more than $110 billion now, said Keith Sashaw, president of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association. It all adds up to fewer younger workers in the labour force to do everything that society and the burgeoning senior classes will need. Another challenge flagged is the increasingly fickle attitudes of the new generation entering the workforce. Younger workers were portrayed as less patient, sometimes less reliable and often uninterested in less prestigious jobs they see as beneath them.
“We have a cultural problem,” said forum participant Susan Jones, saying many Canadians have been guilty of being “snobs” who believe their children must go to university and nothing less will do. She said many young people are “wasting their time” getting a degree, but won’t do some work on the side to get real experience. Jones said she could name 20 young people right now “basically sitting around with their fingers up their nose because they sneer at a lot of jobs.” It’s left employers in the service and blue-collar industries competing against the education industry, she added. B.C. Business Council policy analyst Ken Peacock said adopting a more flexible workplace can help. Peacock said one employer in Kamloops found they were better able to retain workers by declaring an instant day off when there’s a major snowfall and employees want to go skiing. Immigration — increasingly Canada’s biggest source of new workers — will become more important, but Kunin noted the country generally fails to meet its immigration targets. Competition is fierce against other nations for the most skilled workers, she noted. One solution, Kunin said, is to alter the points system used to select immigrants from one that heavily favours the university-trained towards one where foreign applicants with a less academic skill set have a better chance of gaining entry. Setting up training and certification centres overseas — something the U.S. is doing — is another option. But B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair said immigration is largely about raiding the third world’s best talents. “We took their resources and now we’re taking their people,” he said. Likewise, he said, employers who “poach” workers from their competitors or other sectors are just moving the problem around. He said the best approach is to work harder to train new people here at home. Sinclair said B.C.’s record has been dismal since the province disbanded its old apprenticeship training agency. “Our apprenticeship completion rate has dropped dramatically since then,” he said. Some low-skill workers want to get more training but their employers — desperate not to lose them — offer them more money not to go back to school, he added.
A deepening labour shortage is only poised to get worse as B.C.’s population ages and the province struggles to attract new workers, a regional dialogue heard Wednesday. The 600,000 seniors now in B.C. will nearly double to almost 1.2 million aged 65-plus over the next 20 years, speakers told a GVRD-led forum on labour and immigration issues in Surrey. Barely 100,000 new people are projected to enter the labour force to offset the loss. Delaying retirement is one strategy to retain workers, economist Roslyn Kunin said. Premier Gordon Campbell has already announced plans to remove mandatory retirement at age 65 in B.C. “Freedom 85 has an nice ring to it,” Kunin quipped. She said another strategy is increased use of technology — especially things like automated retail checkouts — that allow companies to get greater productivity out of the workers they have. Intensifying the challenge is the boom in construction that’s drawing workers away from other sectors. The value of major construction projects under way has climbed from $65 billion two years ago to more than $110 billion now, said Keith Sashaw, president of the Vancouver Regional Construction Association. It all adds up to fewer younger workers in the labour force to do everything that society and the burgeoning senior classes will need. Another challenge flagged is the increasingly fickle attitudes of the new generation entering the workforce. Younger workers were portrayed as less patient, sometimes less reliable and often uninterested in less prestigious jobs they see as beneath them.
“We have a cultural problem,” said forum participant Susan Jones, saying many Canadians have been guilty of being “snobs” who believe their children must go to university and nothing less will do. She said many young people are “wasting their time” getting a degree, but won’t do some work on the side to get real experience. Jones said she could name 20 young people right now “basically sitting around with their fingers up their nose because they sneer at a lot of jobs.” It’s left employers in the service and blue-collar industries competing against the education industry, she added. B.C. Business Council policy analyst Ken Peacock said adopting a more flexible workplace can help. Peacock said one employer in Kamloops found they were better able to retain workers by declaring an instant day off when there’s a major snowfall and employees want to go skiing. Immigration — increasingly Canada’s biggest source of new workers — will become more important, but Kunin noted the country generally fails to meet its immigration targets. Competition is fierce against other nations for the most skilled workers, she noted. One solution, Kunin said, is to alter the points system used to select immigrants from one that heavily favours the university-trained towards one where foreign applicants with a less academic skill set have a better chance of gaining entry. Setting up training and certification centres overseas — something the U.S. is doing — is another option. But B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair said immigration is largely about raiding the third world’s best talents. “We took their resources and now we’re taking their people,” he said. Likewise, he said, employers who “poach” workers from their competitors or other sectors are just moving the problem around. He said the best approach is to work harder to train new people here at home. Sinclair said B.C.’s record has been dismal since the province disbanded its old apprenticeship training agency. “Our apprenticeship completion rate has dropped dramatically since then,” he said. Some low-skill workers want to get more training but their employers — desperate not to lose them — offer them more money not to go back to school, he added.
