To fill one in five vacancies through immigration, as recommended by Quebec, 90,000 more immigrants would have to choose to settle in the regions by 2025. The challenge promises to be gigantic as a study of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) denounces the red tape and the scarcity of housing to attract these workers outside Montreal.
75%
Proportion of immigrants to Quebec who chose to settle in Montreal during the 2015-2019 period, for an average of 37,260 immigrants per year out of a total of 49,233.
1,439,200
Number of positions to be filled for the 2021-2030 period, according to Emploi-Québec forecasts. It is estimated that immigrants will fill 19% of these positions by 2025, a rate that increases to 22% thereafter until 2030. The CFIB used an average of 20% for its analysis.
Regional deficit
Currently, “68% of job vacancies are outside the Montreal region, but the rest of Quebec receives only 25% of immigrants,” notes the CFIB study. “It is obvious that with the average number of immigrants currently received in most regions, filling 1 in 5 positions by this means is utopian unless there is a major shift in favor of the regionalization of immigration, note by press release Francis Bérubé, director of provincial affairs for the CFIB and author of the study. Our regions are those that will bear the brunt of the effects of the labor shortage over the next few years if nothing changes. »
By cross-referencing official statistics on the labor shortage and the region of settlement of immigrants, Mr. Bérubé painted a very precise portrait of the regions’ deficit in terms of immigration. It is considered that each region should fill 20% of its labor shortage through immigration. From the outset, two of the 16 administrative regions analyzed, Montreal and Laval, are not affected by this deficit. With 79,660 vacancies in 2022, for example, Montreal receives around 37,000 immigrants each year, or 46%, well above the recommended 20%.
In the other regions, Montérégie will post the largest deficit by 2025, with an expected shortfall of 24,225 to reach this 20% threshold.
In total, if nothing is done, the CFIB study establishes an “annual deficit” of immigrants in the region of 17,988 people, or 89,940 for the period 2021-2025. “The regionalization of immigration is a sensitive and essential issue to ensure a prosperous economic future for all our regions,” said François Vincent, vice-president for Quebec at the CFIB, in a press release. The Quebec government must make it a priority. »
The obstacles
The Quebec owners of SMEs in the regions surveyed in October 2022 by the CFIB confirm this: 80% believe that the adoption of measures to attract immigrants to the regions in order to reduce the effects of the local labor shortage “was a high, if not a very high, priority”. To the same question, in January 2021, they were 59% to choose this answer.
When asked what the biggest barriers to attracting immigrants to their region are, 571 CFIB members surveyed online in October 2022 pick red tape first. 43% consider “paperwork” and “delays associated with hiring foreign workers” to be the number one barrier, followed by housing availability, named by 38% of respondents. The financial costs associated with hiring foreign workers (27%), access to organizations to find these workers (23%) and the lack of specialized resources for reception (23%) are the other main obstacles cited. .