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Canada: Two Major Macroeconomic Issues

One of the major long term threats to Canadian economic growth has been the massive shortage of skilled labours. The country is in an urgent need of skilled tradespeople, engineers, health workers etc. As the country, and the world, heads towards an economy where highly educated and well-trained people is the need of the hour, it is suffering with baby boomers hitting the retirement age and exit the workforce. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce estimates there will be 550,000 unskilled workers who won’t be able to find work by 2016. By 2021, it says, the number could be well over a million. At the same time, it is estimated there will be 1.5 million skilled job vacancies in 2016, and 2.6 million by 2021. The C-Suite survey of Canadian executives reports that 84 per cent of respondents are having a difficult time finding qualified and available skilled workers to staff their businesses. According to the surveyed executives, licensed trades people are the hardest employees to find, especially in the service sector and manufacturing and resource industries. Canadian businesses are calling on the government to make Canada’s human resource challenge a top priority.

The organization's vice-president of national policy, Mathew Wilson, says shortages are widespread but particularly acute in certain industries and regions, particularly Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Newfoundland. There has been around 71,000 job losses last year in the manufacturing sector alone. Alberta predicting a shortfall of 1,00,000 jobs over the next 10 years, competition of labour will be fierce in the west.

Statistics Canada (StatsCan) predicted a massive labour shortage affecting Western Canada in a report issued nine years ago. It cites Canada’s aging baby boom generation, today’s unprecedented demand for oil and gas, and the lack of qualified personnel as the impetus to cultivating a huge strain on the workforce and the oil industry sector in general. In...