Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members. I'm very pleased to be here. Thank you for inviting ITAC to this forum. It's a very important discussion that we're having regarding skills and talent.
As you know, ITAC represents the Canadian technology and ICT industry. Our membership is over 350 companies across Canada. This group of companies in the ICT sector produces over 5% of GDP, as you heard, and creates over 750,000 jobs. I'll put it in terms of dollars. We make about $140 billion of revenue, which contributes to the economy. However, in our membership, 65% of our members are small and medium-sized companies, which are dealing with the skills and talent issue on a regular basis.
I know you have heard from several witnesses over the last little while, such as Industry Canada and Statistics Canada. The skills gap is a common issue and common thread that I hear from all of our members. Some of the reports I've seen indicate that over the next 10 to 12 years you're looking at over 160,000 shortages—jobs that need to be filled in this sector. This issue is very real for our members, and they deal with it on a regular basis. If we're going to be building a knowledge economy, it is extremely critical that we build not only our own resources internally, but that we also compete globally to attract the talent to come here. Canada needs to be a destination for a skilled workforce. There are several key areas we need to address.
First, we need to have much better information in terms of emerging ICT jobs. Often we do a lot of studies that are based on jobs and NOC codes that look backwards to yesterday's jobs. We need to know where the puck is going, rather than where the puck has been. This industry is changing very quickly. We need to have a view of where the emerging technologies are going.
Second, we need to have skilled talents available through our own growth in our universities and high schools, as David mentioned before. Also, a significant effort needs to go into retraining.
Finally, we need to acquire additional talent through responsive and timely immigration. We need to attract talent globally.
As you know, there are some shortcomings in the way we gather labour market information. When I talk about the market information that's available, quite simply, we need better information on supply and demand. We need to match the supply and demand relative to the ICT sector. We need better forecasting on what the jobs will be in the future. If you think back on our educational institutions' internship programs, we can prepare our youth for tomorrow's future and for the ICT sector.
Our industry is very dynamic and jobs change at a very quick pace. A recent study commissioned by Industry Canada indicated that the students need more real-world experience. We need to have some policy framework that allows young companies to offer jobs to the young students in this sector, and keep them in the sector. We also need to support a cooperative internship program among academia and the private sector.
It is always important to measure against the benchmarks we have seen in other countries, and there are several countries that are attracting foreign talent on a much larger scale than we have been.
In the immigration area, we need to do some fast-tracking, an exemption of LMOs for the ICT sector and for inter-company transfers. The reason this is critical is that our members often need foreign talent to get certain jobs done now. They cannot wait three or six months; the projects are over. So when the need for talent comes, we need to find a way to bring fresh talent here on an ongoing basis.
Often in the ICT sector—after 32 years of being in industry—this pyramid is often built from the top down. If you attract top talent, they'll bring 200 other jobs with them. If you don't have the top talent available in the country, they cannot build the organizations, research, or processes where young people will come and join them. It is extremely critical for us to import the best of the breed into the country.
Finally, in closing, Canada's ICT sector continues to be strong, and at the same time we need to take some very specific actions to build on our ability to compete in the world. Addressing this skills gap will be vital to our success in the future.
We need better information and programs to ensure that we have the skills that will be in great demand for the future. ITAC would be pleased to draw upon our members and experience to help you with any assessment you need to do.
I would like to thank the chairman and the forum for asking me to come and present this today. Thank you.