Not at all.
Overall, the point of that slide is to show that the economy is still acting sluggishly.
To help get us through this sluggishness, we believe governments need to address the issues of greatest concern to small businesses so that they in turn can focus their attention on hiring staff and growing their business, thereby growing the economy.
As you can see on slide 4, although small business owners remain concerned with their total tax burden and the impact of government regulations and paper burden on their business, among other issues, the shortage of qualified labour remains a priority issue for nearly half of our small business members.
When broken down by province, as you see on slide 5, the shortage of qualified labour reflects what we've been hearing from our members and what you may be hearing from your constituents. In the western provinces the shortage of qualified labour is very high. It is also trending high in Quebec, Nova Scotia, and especially Newfoundland and Labrador.
Slide 6 demonstrates the spread we typically like to see regarding hiring intentions. Overall, short-term hiring expectations are still running reasonably well with 26% expecting to add full-time staff in the next three to four months, versus only 7% who expect to cut back.
All this data is showing us that business owners are in need of employees across Canada. Small businesses play an integral role in the hiring of young people in Canada, giving many young Canadians their first experience in the workforce. This is further supported by the research from the fall of last year, on slide 7, where we asked our members to describe their hiring experience during the last three years. Over half of respondents had hired a young person. Only one in four employers had tried to hire a young person but didn't because the candidate lacked the necessary skills or experience.
Small businesses truly are the training ground for Canadian youth, spending $18 billion a year on training of youth and other employees. Approximately two-thirds of that amount is spent on informal on-the-job training. The reason for this big expenditure, as slide 8 demonstrates, is that over half of the jobs that small businesses are looking to fill require on-the-job training, and nearly half require a high school diploma or occupation-specific training. A third require a college diploma or apprenticeship training, where small businesses also play a big role. This demonstrates that the greatest human resources need in the small business sector is for the semi-skilled and junior employees. Small employers are often the first source of employment for those looking for entry level opportunities.
What can government do to help small businesses continue to hire youth? On slide 9 you see from our report, “Canada's Training Ground”, that we asked business owners what would incent them to continue to train underskilled and low-skilled workers. Overwhelmingly, respondents indicated that reducing their payroll and tax burden would help them the most, through the introduction of training tax credits, a reduced tax burden, and a break from EI payments during the training period. Conversely, new taxes on employers to be used for training was very unpopular.
I should mention that the data on this and the previous slide stems from our report in 2009, and the committee may be interested to know that we will be updating the data this year.
To encourage youth employment, we ask the government to consider the following recommendations on slide 10:
Introduce the EI training credit, or renew the EI hiring credit, with a focus on youth. As demonstrated in the previous slide, a break on EI payroll taxes is one way to recognize the informal on-the-job training that small businesses undertake when hiring a new employee and especially a young person. The cost in time and money can be significant when training a young person who may be working for the first time.
Maintain the freeze on CPP rates and ensure EI rates are lowered once the EI account is brought into balance. Small business owners welcomed announcements last year that the EI rates would be stabilized and that the government would not be increasing CPP premiums. Payroll taxes are the biggest disincentive to hiring for small business owners, and stability in rates and therefore costs could give them more confidence to grow their business.
Last, we encourage the government to support their provincial counterparts in the mutual recognition of apprenticeship programs across Canada. Apprenticeship prepares hundreds of young Canadians for the skilled workforce every year, but small business owners tell us that it is getting increasingly difficult to hire and train apprentices.
We thank the committee for the invitation to appear. This concludes my remarks.