Canadian employers advised to hire Americans

[oneh2obabe]

In a new report that rekindles the controversial foreign workers debate, the Conference Board of Canada suggests Canada employers should look to the United States if they can’t get skilled workers at home.

It points in particular to an Alberta campaign to recruit American workers as an example of how to source employees that can easily adapt to the Canadian workforce.

“Many Alberta employers consider U.S. workers to be ideal to fill Canadian vacancies because they have comparable training and experience,” says the report, Skills in Motion: U.S. Workers May Hold the Key to Canada's Skills Shortage. “In addition, they understand the language and work culture, can enter Canada without a visa, and live nearby.”

The report addresses what is a real concern for many employers – finding skilled workers to take specific jobs in sectors such as mining and oil and gas. A skills shortage is hard for many to imagine given Canada’s 7.1 per cent unemployment rate and concerns around rising youth unemployment.

Still, economists point to a skills mismatch in Canada, and its potential drag on economic growth. The Canadian government says it’s trying to address the problem through a new job skills program introduced in the recent federal budget, which is itself controversial given the backlash from many provinces.

The foreign workers debate boiled over earlier this year when the RBC’s decision to replace Canadian staff with people outside the country make headlines. HD Mining International Ltd. also came under scrutiny earlier this year when it hired workers from China for its B.C. mining project, arguing no Canadians were qualified to do the work. The federal government has vowed to re-examine the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program in the aftermath of these cases.

The Conference Board acknowledges the foreign workers debate is sensitive, but also believes it’s somewhat overblown.

“The skills gap is real,” says the report. “These sensational incidents belie the positive experiences of the vast majority of employers who rely on TFW programs.”

Earlier this year, the Conference Board released a report showing 70 per cent of organizations are having difficulty recruiting or retaining particular skills.

Its latest report points to companies in Alberta whose hiring of foreign workers helped to keep them in business.

The top five source countries from which Canadian firms recruit foreign workers are the U.S., Mexico, France, the United Kingdom, and Australia, the report says. Most of them are in skilled and technical occupations.

Alberta launched a campaign last year to recruit American workers. The pilot program is said to be a litmus test for “fast and flexible response to labour market demands.”

So far 1,000 American workers have been hired in a number of trades, such as pipe fitter, heavy equipment mechanic and pressure welder.

Using its Alberta case study, the Conference Board report reiterates the argument that foreign workers are need to keep Canadian company’s growing and the economy on track.

“Employers should, of course, look close to home for skilled labour first, but recognize that domestic sources are rarely enough to meet demand for workers for resource mega-projects,” the report states. “That is not just a regional problem, it affects our national economic prospects as well."

Labour unions acknowledge skill shortages are an issue in some sectors in Canada - it's how they're dealt with that can be problematic.

United Steelworkers economist Erin Weir says one of the main issues with the current TFW program is that workers from overseas are "vulnerable to exploitation" by employers.

He encourages the Canadian government to work with international unions on these programs.

"If skilled workers could come to Canada through international unions, they would benefit from labour representation here and could not be used to undercut Canadian standards," Weir said on Friday. "Of course, the longer-term solution should be to provide training opportunities for more Canadian workers, including permanent immigrants to Canada."

[Tori_K]

can enter Canada without a visa

Laughed at this one - it almost sounds like they're suggesting an American should come and work in Alberta on a tourist visa without getting a work permit.

[BoB76]

I'd hire an American if they could afford to live here. For the most part they are a bunch of poor people living like it's a 3rd world country and I doubt they could afford to get here. I'm actually thinking about opening a laundry business or a nail salon and bringing over some Chinese. Once they are here I'll sell them the business and profit from them. I know a guy in Florida who does it all the time and he makes a killing at it.

[Merry]

The frustrating part about this whole "skills shortage" debate is that for the last 25 years people have been sounding the alarm about how we need to train more apprentices to replace all the baby boomer tradesmen when they retire, and for 25 years those warnings have been largely ignored.

I believe the reason they were ignored is because many employers believed it would be cheaper for them to import qualified people when they needed them, rather than spend money on apprentices. Canada has a history of waiting until there is a shortage, and then importing tradespeople from other countries rather than training our own people. But this time around that strategy isn't working, because all the other countries are experiencing the same shortages of trades people as we are. Hence the current panic.

I've heard a lot of proposed solutions, such as shortening the apprenticeship period and the like. But the problem with a solution such as that is we could wind up with a lot of underqualified tradespeople. Do we really want to have less than adequately trained people build our bridges, our vehicles, our houses, etc. I know that I don't.

So given the very shortsighted nature of our planning when it comes to ensuring an adequate number of tradespeople, it would appear our best temporary solution is to import as many as we can to fill the gap while we train more of our own young people to do the jobs. Unfortunately though, I still don't see huge increases in the number of apprentices companies are taking on. So as the number of available imports continues to dwindle, the labour shortage is going to continue to increase.

We're living in a time when youth unemployment has reached massive proportions in many areas, yet far too many companies are STILL relying entirely on imported labour to fill their gaps, and refusing to take on more apprentices. I think it's time the Government found ways to encourage companies to change this behaviour; hopefully before our economy begins to suffer even more than is currently the case.