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Acute shortage of skilled labor to hit Canada by 2021-Report

by Mary Jones - February 8, 2010            Bookmark and Share

Ontario, Canada, February 8: Severe shortage of skills along with lack of education will leave nearly 700,000 Ontarians jobless by the year 2021. 

><p>Ontario, Canada, February 8: Severe shortage of skills along with lack of education will leave nearly 700,000 Ontarians jobless by the year 2021. </p>

This was revealed by Dr. Rick Miner, Seneca College President emeritus, in a speech at the Canadian Club of Toronto. 

1.1 million to become jobless by 2021--
As per the predictions by Dr. Miner, the figure of 700,000 will be in addition to those already in the pool of unemployment. Presently, nearly five percent people are unemployed. So, this would bring the total unemployed in Canada to even more than 1.1 million.

Unemployment crisis severe than recession--
Reading the findings from his report titled-‘People Without Jobs, Jobs Without People: Ontario’s Labor Market Future’, Dr. Miner gave a clear warning saying the imminent severe unemployment crisis in Ontario will be much more that even the global economic recession since the unskilled workers will be searching jobs for which they lack desired skills and the companies wont be able to find workers for the vacant positions. 

Obviously, this will result in making nearly 1 million jobs in Ontario remaining unfilled in the period of next ten years. 

Its time, cautioned Mr. Miner, to take a decisive action at the earliest or Canada’s economic future and social fabric will be in complete chaos. And it’s not just Canada; this similar fashion will be seen in the Unites States (US) too. 

A former management professor, Dr. Miner blamed the mismatch between the increasing demands for knowledge workers and an aging population as the reason for this crisis awaiting Ontarians in the coming decade. 

Increased Canadian immigration, training can solve the problem---
There cannot be any single solution to this grave problem, said Mr. Miner. So, apart from encouraging increased number of young people to seek education in colleges and universities, Canada needs to utilize the skills of new immigrants in Canada and ask the older employees to stick to their chosen jobs. 

Mr. Miner’s predictions about Canada’s economy are based on the recent US studies and the figures from the Canada government, Ontario’s Ministry of Finance.

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