Josh Aldrich - Calgary Herald
As businesses from across all sectors continue to struggle to find workers, a new report from the Calgary Chamber of Commerce looks at barriers and solutions to filling jobs through immigration.
Pictured is a stock photo of a hiring sign outside of a business.
Released Tuesday, the report, Unlocking our Talent Potential: Refining our Immigration Policies to Grow our Talent Pool, is the first in a four-part series from the chamber looking at labour shortages in Alberta.
While there are many issues impacting the economy and its growth, according to the chamber’s third-quarter Business Outlook, 31.5 per cent of businesses are concerned about the labour shortage.
Deborah Yedlin, president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, said improving immigration is a major part of the solution.
“We can’t fill the demand with our local population,” she said. “Immigration is a way to fill jobs that need to be filled, but also increase our economic growth. And with an aging demographic, this is the only way we grow our economy at this point, because birth rates aren’t going up, the demographic curves against us.”
The report made three recommendations: reform eligibility requirements within federal and provincial immigration programs, empower businesses to leverage immigration talent, reduce employment barriers and create meaningful employment opportunities for newcomers.
In the first quarter of this year, the province’s unemployment rate was 5.9 per cent, yet there was a record 88,000 vacant jobs.
This has been partially mitigated by the flow of people to Alberta, including about 10,000 people from other parts of Canada to the Wild Rose province alone — marking four consecutive quarters of positive interprovincial migration.
One of the goals is to further unlock the potential of immigration to Alberta from beyond Canada’s borders. On Tuesday, the federal government announced its intention to bring in 500,000 immigrants a year by 2025.
“That is fantastic in terms of numbers, but let’s make sure everybody who comes has a place to land from an employment perspective, that there’s a way for their credentials to get recognized and that they have a full suite of opportunities and it doesn’t just focus on one segment of the labour market, but across the board,” said Yedlin.
Deborah Yedlin, president and CEO of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce
, said “Immigration is a way to fill jobs that need to be filled.”
A Statistics Canada report from June showed immigration accounted for 84 per cent of labour force growth during the 2010s.
Despite past success with immigration, the Business Council of Canada released a study on the issue in June that showed less than a quarter of Canadian Businesses believe the system is set up to serve their needs. They point to complex rules, application processing delays and costs associated with navigating the system. Further, there are burdensome and restrictive immigration policies for newcomers.
The chamber report said existing programs, such as the Canadian Express Entry System, favour highly skilled workers, leaving newcomers seeking lower-wage positions reliant on provincial programs like the Alberta Opportunity Stream. Restrictive requirements, however, for work experience, language, skills and career ineligibility limits these programs to a select few.
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Yedlin said this needs to involve the post-secondary schools to help devise proper infrastructure to get people into the positions they have been trained in abroad.
“I think what we need is a triage system, so we understand how to help people who do qualify to come here,” she said.
Newcomers face a number of systemic barriers once they arrive in Canada, preventing the recognition of credentials and experience earned elsewhere. They often then face challenges in finding employment in Canada, including difficulty obtaining Canadian work experience and a perceived bias against hiring newcomers.
Yedlin said there are no numbers on how many people there are in Alberta or Canada who are unable to get recertified once immigrating, but it is a big issue she hears about all the time.
“We actually have to be better at tracking who comes to the country and wasn’t able to find work in the profession that they’ve trained in,” she said.
The series of reports will be released over the next three weeks.
jaldrich@postmedia.com
Twitter: @JoshAldrich03
A Statistics Canada report from June showed immigration accounted for 84 per cent of labour force growth during the 2010s.
Despite past success with immigration, the Business Council of Canada released a study on the issue in June that showed less than a quarter of Canadian Businesses believe the system is set up to serve their needs. They point to complex rules, application processing delays and costs associated with navigating the system. Further, there are burdensome and restrictive immigration policies for newcomers.
The chamber report said existing programs, such as the Canadian Express Entry System, favour highly skilled workers, leaving newcomers seeking lower-wage positions reliant on provincial programs like the Alberta Opportunity Stream. Restrictive requirements, however, for work experience, language, skills and career ineligibility limits these programs to a select few.
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Help Wanted: Labour shortage gives workers a chance to trade up in the world of employment
Inflation, worker shortages put growing squeeze on Calgary businesses: survey
Yedlin said this needs to involve the post-secondary schools to help devise proper infrastructure to get people into the positions they have been trained in abroad.
“I think what we need is a triage system, so we understand how to help people who do qualify to come here,” she said.
Newcomers face a number of systemic barriers once they arrive in Canada, preventing the recognition of credentials and experience earned elsewhere. They often then face challenges in finding employment in Canada, including difficulty obtaining Canadian work experience and a perceived bias against hiring newcomers.
Yedlin said there are no numbers on how many people there are in Alberta or Canada who are unable to get recertified once immigrating, but it is a big issue she hears about all the time.
“We actually have to be better at tracking who comes to the country and wasn’t able to find work in the profession that they’ve trained in,” she said.
The series of reports will be released over the next three weeks.
jaldrich@postmedia.com
Twitter: @JoshAldrich03
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