While a historic labor shortage is raging in Quebec, our governments are moving backwards on the issue of immigration. In a report titled State of equilibrium of the labor market, recently published by the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Solidarity, it is expected that by 2025, more than 50% of occupations will be in shortage of manpower. This is the first time that the number of professions in shortage of workers will exceed the number of professions in a situation of equilibrium.
Posted yesterday at 4:00 p.m.
Here, it becomes important to put things into perspective. If it seems that the situation will be more “critical” in 2025, it does not take a doctorate in economics (or a ministerial report) to notice that the shortage is indeed in progress, at the moment, and this, in all the sectors. Moreover, whether it is the hotel industry, health or even information technology (IT), the sector in which I work, this phenomenon dates from well before the pandemic. Fifty years after the most important baby boom in the history of Quebec, it was, in my opinion, a predictable challenge.
All the same, I commend the relevance of the study, which provides a clearer and quantified portrait of the potential damage of this shortage for our economy. What I deplore is the lack of government action in the face of this situation, which we have seen coming for several years now. I find myself wondering what governments are waiting for to find solutions to this issue that is weakening our economy and threatening our SMEs. The solutions don’t just rest on their shoulders. But don’t the many sectors currently affected by this shortage justify concrete actions now? Will we have to wait for our companies to disappear one by one, for lack of succession, for us to act?
In an open letter published last December, I wrote that one of the most effective short-term solutions is to increase the immigration thresholds and facilitate the process for companies wishing to hire staff abroad. What has changed since that day? Nothing.
Governments continue to pass the buck, fueling a sterile debate over their respective powers in immigration. It’s not the right fight. At the moment, thousands of companies, and particularly SMEs, are struggling to recruit. Moreover, the Ministry of Economy and Innovation recently unveiled its plan to increase the number of businesses in Quebec, under the pretext that this number is declining and that our province is the one with the fewest in the country. . I wonder: how will we manage to convince people to undertake, if there is no one to work in the companies and if we are already lacking in succession?
Being an entrepreneur myself, in the field of IT recruitment moreover, I am at the forefront of seeing the effects of the labor shortage on my business, my clients and workers looking for a job. . DELAN, the company I founded in 1997, is a growing SME specializing in recruitment and placement in the information technology industry, a major activity sector in Quebec, representing more than 3% of the labor market and 5% of GDP.
Last April, DELAN submitted a request to the Ministry to hire a qualified recruiter from abroad. Almost two months later, we are still waiting for the file to be processed. Already seven weeks have passed and we have not even received an acknowledgment of receipt. It is deplorable not to be able to materialize this hiring, whereas the worker in question needs a job and DELAN, an employee. This is just one example of the situations we have witnessed in recent years.
DELAN is not the only victim of red tape and low immigration thresholds: several colleagues from the IT industry, but also business owners, have told me about their recruitment challenges. We must at all costs open the immigration valves, simplify and speed up the processing of applications, if we want to hope to save our businesses.