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Building a Skilled Workforce in Canada

Written by: Arupa Tesolin

Article Overview: Arupa Tesolin talks about the challenges of maintaining a skilled work-force in Canada and why we need to re-think the ready-employee and start training them again.

Building a Skilled Workforce in Canada

Canada is grappling with the challenges of developing and retaining a skilled workforce. This was the topic of a recent industry conference from The Conference Board, our leading think tank.

Among the issues to be faced are growing gaps between employer’s needs and the skill level of the workforce. This creates a dual edged problem; workers who have a harder time finding jobs and employers who have a harder time finding talent. Both issues are being addressed by skills development and training. The need to build a skilled workforce to compete in the global economy is a given. The challenge of how to train and retrain the right workforce will require many solutions.

Michael Bloom, Director of Education and Learning, quoted the following facts in his opening remarks. Canada, US, Scotland, England, Australia, New Zealand and other OECD countries the ratio of retired people versus working or school age people is lowering. There are too few young people to make up the difference resulting in a worker deficit. Because of this the workforce will need to generate more productivity per worker. The solution is to keep and upgrade skills of existing workers and hire more immigrants to make up the difference.

In my view, these facts have been stated before and are based on assumptions that the North American economy will continue established growth levels and that the job market is stable. Both of these assumptions may be flawed if jobs disappear along with the retiring workers.

But let’s get back to the issue of skills. Over 40% of workers in both Canada and US have literacy and other basic skills deficiencies in terms of levels what most workplaces today require. The skills list includes literacy, basic, employability, essential, job-specific, sector-specific, technology and advanced. Absence of these skills are viewed as contributing to decreased economic performance, productivity, innovation and quality of life via wage and consumer sustainability.

Canada has 3 strategies in place. The Innovation Strategy (2002), The Workplace Skills Strategy (2004-5) and 29 Sector Councils that help employers and workers in specific industries collaborate to address workplace skills issues.

The skills strategy has components for recognizing credentials across regions and professions, a credit review pilot project to assess post-secondary credits for job related training and a National Literacy Secretariat to fund literacy programs that prepare people for jobs. The United States has similar provisions in its Workforce Reinvestment and Education Act, expected to become law in spring 2005. England, Scotland, Australia and New Zealand all have similar initiatives.

In his summary Michael states that while labour supply is limited, the demand for skills and talent is rising and the competition is global. Current employees are the key to building capacity and Canada must invest in skills development for maximum results. Learning is and will continue to be a major source of competitive advantage.

Judith McBride King, Director of HR Management, said both government and private sector firms were experiencing shortages in certain areas which were expected to intensify particularly among mid-level to executive level management, professional, technical and scientific groups. More recent findings have shown the demand is tapering off somewhat now but will be more pronounced in 2010 and 2011.

A sampling of the in-demand occupations includes engineers, sales, managers, nurses, geologists/geophysicists, heavy equipment operators, welders, HR professionals, IT project leaders, computer analysts, firefighters and electricians.

Organization remedies include developing succession plans, learning and development and retention strategies aimed at keeping skilled workers. In the race for people companies want those who are change-able, adaptable, productive, innovative and impassioned. The top human capital challenges for the next 3-5 years are productivity improvement, capacity to respond to rapid change, and the capacity to innovate. Leadership capability is also important.

An aging population is one of the realities for Canada and other OECD economies. The median population age in Canada is now around 38 years, US is 37. By comparison China is 31, India 24.4 and Pakistan 19.4 years.

Given this environment Canada needs to make sure it is fully tapping into all the skills and talents of those in communities and organizations, including youth and older workers, women, people with disabilities, aboriginal peoples, visible minorities and immigrants. (As an aside, a recent federal policy review found that 50% of employers are simply dismissing the resumes of immigrants from the pool of prospective employees.)

Marianne Chambers, Ontario’s Minister of Training, said that an alarming 30% of high school students in Ontario, drop out of school. Very few of today’s academically biased students have been cultured to think of having a career in trades. Yet in economic terms this is perhaps a better option for many. In terms of salary average a college grad can typically earn an average of $37,000, University grads, $43,000. But a sheet metal worker coming out of a 4-year apprenticeship program will start at $73,000.

Canada’s report card on learning, said Judith, has not been that good. Investment in training and development has been flat for 8 years and our productivity results have lagged behind other nations. Only 30% of Canadian companies claim to have an environment that supports creativity and risk taking.

Chalk that up perhaps to complacency and the fact that, as U.S. author Edward Gordon pointed out, 85% of our exports go to US. Gordon pointed out that aggressive human capital investment to build a smarter workforce is needed to prevent a potential meltdown in smart technology and industry. Who expected the world to change, eh?

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Article Tags: american economy, assumptions, director of education, economic performance, finding jobs, gaps, global economy, harder time, immigrants, literacy, michael bloom, oecd countries, performance productivity, quality of life, scotland england, skill level, skilled workforce, skills deficiencies, strateg, workplaces



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