Teleworking made people understand to employers that they could hire remote professionals beyond usual borders. the Quebec is no exception to this phenomenon, which does nothing to alleviate the labor shortage in the province. Second article in a series of three on this new paradigm of the labor market: when government aid penalizes businesses here.
When he co-founded the venture capital investment fund Inovia Capital in 2007, Chris Arsenault probably had no idea that he would one day run a job site capable of competing with Jobbooms and Indeed in this area. world. And yet it is the case: the Inovia site currently displays a little more than 3,200 job offers posted by some fifty companies in which the Montreal fund has an interest.
It ranges from Montreal electronic transactions giant Lightspeed to home healthcare specialist AlayaCare. And this number of open positions is on the rise: there were just over 3,000 offers on its site just two weeks ago. “Everyone has difficulty hiring. This is the challenge for the next few years, ”believes Chris Arsenault.
It is a doubly complex challenge for Quebec technology companies, which compete locally with video game publishers without benefiting from the same employment assistance. Quebec offers the multimedia sector a tax credit that covers up to 37.5% of the wages of its workers established here, regardless of where its head office is located in the world.
More generally, Quebec companies do not have the financial means to compete with American giants like Google or Facebook who come to hire in the province, observes the Montreal businessman. “They have money. They’re going to offer a salary and a signing bonus, and then they’re going to release a budget of several hundred thousand dollars to help you invest in something that is close to your heart. Are you concerned about the environment? Here is a million dollars that you are allowed to invest in green projects. We’ll even give you more if you recruit ten of your colleagues, ”he explains.
The beautiful role
Many professionals in the technology sector have the skills to work in the financial sector as well as in health or even in video games. However, only the latter sector benefits from these tax credits. In this industry, which is highly concentrated in Montreal, the main employers are foreign companies.
More and more Quebec businesses are opposed to these tax credits which, according to them, not only disadvantage businesses in sectors other than multimedia, but also harm the growth of Quebec businesses. Before the pandemic, the President and CEO of Stingray, Éric Boyko, as well as the former CEO of Industrial Alliance Yvon Charest had expressed their wish to see them disappear.
These two representatives of Quebec inc. considered it more relevant to establish new programs that would rather help Quebec SMEs to further digitize their activities. The pandemic quickly illustrated the need to accelerate this digital shift, but the government has still not touched the tax credits offered to multimedia companies.
It would be time to see it, says Chris Arsenault. “The government has a great role since jobs create themselves. And no business should depend on these credits alone. It’s a great time to start making them go away, ”he says. The investor believes that it would be more advantageous for Quebec to invest in the creation of new businesses and the protection of intellectual property created on its territory.
Quebec listening
“The job market is international. People in Trois-Rivières may have a boss in Montreal or San Francisco, but notice one thing: no vice-president or top executive from companies like Facebook or Google resides outside of the United States. This is how we attract talent, ”he believes.
MM. Arsenault, Boyko and Charest have the support of the Canadian Council of Innovators (CCI). “Techs are in a situation of full employment. Government programs have not changed much since 1997 and above all they inflate the overall balance sheet of foreign companies without really creating wealth in Quebec. These tax credits somewhat kill the emergence of Quebec talent, ”says Pierre-Philippe Lortie, director of public and government affairs for the CCI.
Quebec grievances inc. and Quebec technology companies were heard in Quebec. A mini-budget is planned for the second half of November by Prime Minister François Legault and it should contain measures that will directly address the problem of the labor shortage. The Minister of Labor, Employment and Social Solidarity, Jean Boulet, made no promises, but he said he was well aware of the crisis which particularly affected the technological sector.
“In a free market context, it is not abnormal for foreign companies to seek to recruit talent from Quebec,” he replied by email to To have to. “The reverse is also true, by the way. This is particularly noticeable in the IT sector. However, we believe that Quebec has undeniable economic, social and cultural assets in this battle to retain and attract workers. “