Immigration, retirement will change Canada’s labor growth

Canada, 19th August: Labor force of Canada is going to depict a different outlook in the next two decades, findings of a report by Statistics Canada show.

The employment scenario of Canada will change, thanks to the increasing number of baby boomers and immigrants.

Immigrants to replace baby boomers in Canada workforce in next twenty years--It is being indicated that as more and more Canadian workers reach retirement age, they will be replaced by immigrants.

Growth of Canadian labor force will come to almost a halt, due to increasing number of retirements among the Canadians, the report asserts. This is going to bring up the age of Canadian labor force in the coming two decades.

The only blessing will be the increasing influx of immigrants in Canada, the report further claims.

The fact that majority of new immigrants coming to Canada are below 40 years and are also successful in finding jobs here at the earliest will help in slowing down the ageing of Canada’s labor force, the detailed analysis released by Statistics Canada shows.

By the year 2031, around one out of four workers in Manitoba will be born outside Canada showing an increase from the ratio of one in six in the year 2006. Between the years 2006 and 2010, the annual growth rate of Canada labor force hovered around 1.4 percent.

However, it is being estimated that the growth rate for labor force of Canada is likely to fall down to 1 percent by the next five years period. This is going to be the result of exit of more and more baby boomers from the work force of Canada.

That is not all. The expansion rate of Canada workforce is further going to decline between 0.2 percent and 0.7 percent in the years 2021 to 2026.

Other changes predicted in Canada’s labor force--Participation rate of Canada’s workforce will also witness a decline from the current rate of 67 percent to stay between 59.7 percent and 62.6 percent in the next two decades due to growing life expectancy, fertility rate falling below the replacement rate and increasing ageing baby boomers.

However, number of people aged 15 and above joining workforce of Canada will increase from 18.5 million in the year 2010 to 22.5 million by the year 2031, the report states.

According to a policy and labor expert with University of Saskatchewan, Rose Olfert, retiring baby boomers exiting Canada labor force will result in creating a vacuum of skills and experience on the newcomers joining the workforce. This will put educated and skilled workforce at a premium, he added.