This text is part of the special booklet Trades, professions and careers
The labor shortage does not spare the Quebec aerospace industry. To deal with this, Aéro Montréal has launched a vast awareness campaign to attract the next generation to careers that are sometimes overlooked, but as varied as engineering, production, maintenance… and much more!
“Talent is the sinews of war: the more the aerospace industry develops, the more it attracts other companies to set up here,” believes Suzanne Benoît, President and CEO of Aéro Montréal, a strategic consultation forum. whose mandate is to improve the competitiveness and efficiency of local players, especially SMEs, to provide export assistance and to promote the sector. This includes major internationally renowned companies such as Bombardier, Pratt Whitney and Airbus, but also some fifteen equipment manufacturers and some 200 SMEs.
“We are facing a huge challenge, because everyone has felt the crying need for labor for two years,” she notes. In the airline and manufacturing sectors, 38,000 positions will indeed have to be filled over the next ten years. “We are going to have massive retirements in the medium term, and we need to have time to transfer knowledge,” she continues.
Cybersecurity and autonomy
It is in this context that Aéro Montréal launched a long-term awareness campaign in 2022 to train and recruit qualified personnel on time. As can be seen on the Ose l’aéro website, designed as a gateway to discovering all the diploma and job offers in the aerospace sector, the profiles sought range from aircraft maintenance technicians to mechanics, airplane and helicopter pilots, avionics technicians—those who look after cockpits and specialize in computer systems—and aircraft painters. In short, the list of in-demand professions is long.
Suzanne Benoît also confides that cybersecurity in aerospace holds promise for the future, but that it is still very difficult to find competent workers. “If SMBs want to be able to stay in the big players’ supply chains, they have to show their credentials when it comes to cybersecurity. Everything is digital now, and they are often the most vulnerable when it comes to computer attacks,” she points out.
Because advanced air mobility is a field that will explode in the next few years, the sector should also hire many drone operators. “Everything that revolves around systems to deploy autonomy, decarbonization and electrification will be developed,” says the President and CEO of Aéro Montréal.
Greener, more inclusive
“We are a very traditional industry, and we have to be able to adapt and attract young people,” points out Suzanne Benoît, well aware of the challenges of the time. To change the perception that younger generations have of a polluting aerospace industry and to make products and technologies greener, more than a billion dollars have already been invested in Canada.
“We don’t deny that flying pollutes, but we have been working for a dozen years on practices that are more respectful of the environment. We are very concerned about the carbon footprint,” she argues. As a result, principals will increasingly require their suppliers to have strict rules and processes: “These are in particular eco-responsibility and traceability of a product with the origin, the materials , etc. »
Gender and age diversity is also an aspect that Aéro Montréal wants to emphasize. “We want to retain older workers and we want to bring all the possibilities of aerospace to the attention of young women,” finally points out its president and chief executive officer.
Quebec aerospace in numbers
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the Duty, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of Duty did not take part.