(Calgary) Due to the aging of the population, Canadian businesses will have to get used to suffering from a shortage of personnel, warn experts.
The lack of staff had been largely attributed to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. For experts, however, the coronavirus is only one of the factors explaining labor shortages.
The labor issues that are causing Canadian business headaches are truly rooted in the aging population.
“When I walk around the plant and on the jobsites, I can see this demographic phenomenon,” says Dan Gallagher, CEO of Milkisew Group in Fort McMurray, Alberta. The ratio of apprentices to older workers is so low that there is no longer any reserve to compensate for departures. »
Experts have been warning for several years of massive departures of baby boomers from the job market. The generation of Canadians born from 1946 to 1964 is by far the largest in the country, but it is aging.
The labor force has been on a downward trend since 2000, but the trend has intensified in recent years. The “grey wave” was already pointing on the horizon, but it has just reached the shore.
According to Statistics Canada, more than 1.4 million Canadians reached the age of 55 from 2016 to 2021. Last year, one in five workers was between the ages of 55 and 64, a high since the censuses began.
“It’s like a truck appearing in your rear view mirror. He is there and seems to be advancing slowly. You don’t notice it anymore, and suddenly it’s in your wake,” compares Mike Holden, a senior economist at the Alberta Business Council.
The arrival of the “grey wave” comes at a time when companies of all sizes and in all sectors are complaining about the lack of labor in all provinces. There were one million vacancies in the country in the second quarter of 2022, a peak.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not helped to resolve the situation, far from it.
But the activity rate is slightly lower than that recorded before the start of the pandemic. In fact, young and middle-aged Canadians are back in the workforce at a level comparable to 2019, according to a Scotiabank report.
This same report points out that the cause of the decline in the labor market participation rate is essentially attributable to Canadians aged 60 and over leaving the labor market. At the same time, the authors wrote that “older Canadians are a hotbed of critically underutilized and forgotten workers.”
“The most important thing that gets overlooked is the consequences of these challenges,” says Patrick Gill, senior director of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Business Data Laboratory.
He points out that more than one in three companies (36%) reported problems with a lack of manpower. This percentage rises to around 45% in the manufacturing and construction sectors and 58% in the food sector.
“This means that everyone has longer hours, which affects the quality of life. It also slows growth and contributes to supply chain delays,” Gill said.
Among the solutions put forward is the use of immigration.
But the arrival of a large number of immigrants will not be able to curb the wave, argues Rafael Gomez, director of the Center for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto.
The last baby boomers will turn 65 in 2030. At that time, Canadians between the ages of 15 and 64 will represent a smaller portion of the country’s population.
“It will harm us,” adds Mr. Gomez. Demographic trends are not easy to change in the short term. In reality, it is true that we see this decline [de la force de travail] for 20 years. Mr. Gomez says companies’ problems filling all vacancies won’t go away overnight.
“It’s the new normal. And if the economy crashes, it will not improve working conditions,” he warns.