Jobs & Money Detail
Acute labour shortages in Canada
It might be the Canadian labour market but it seems increasingly to have more in common with Switzerland, or at least Swiss cheese
Following the story in the December 2005 edition of Emigrate Canada about Alberta's increasing struggle to find enough skilled workers to plug the holes in its labour market, now another province has acknowledged that without skilled workers from abroad its economy could spring serious leaks.
This time it's British Columbia that's sounding the alarm bells. Indeed, the Construction Sector Council (CSC), a national organisation that aims to increase Canada's skilled construction workforce, estimates that BC will require 60,000 new skilled trade workers by 2013.
In fact, the shortage is so acute that employers are recruiting directly from other employees. "We've always had a problem with theft of materials from the jobsite. Now, we've got a problem with theft of bodies – workers, basically," Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Home Builders Associations, explained to Business Edge.
To help solve the skilled labour shortage, BC construction industry leaders plan to fast-track skilled trades workers from Europe through the province's Provincial Nominee Programme (PNP).
Last year, Richard Hodgkinson (36), a bricklayer from Croydon, attended the Emigrate exhibition. By July, Richard had been accepted by the BC PNP, and by January this year he had his visa. "It's been amazingly easy," Richard told us last month about the emigration process, just weeks before he and his wife Claire (31) were due to fly out to Vancouver to start their new lives in Canada.
Read other articles about the Candian job market:
Job market spotlight: BC
Job spotlight: Manitoba
Job market spotlight Alberta
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