Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for inviting Research in Motion to this committee.
For those of you who may not have heard of Research in Motion or read the news lately, we are a global leader in wireless innovation. Actually, we invented this entire industry that you probably wear on your hip. I see a lot of BlackBerrys, and I am very happy to see such enlightened committee members using our devices.
To give you a sense of RIM's scope, our products and services are used by more than 77 million people, each and every day, across the globe. We work with over 600 carriers, and we're located in over 175 countries.
Let me give you a sense of the scope of RIM's presence in Canada.
You may be aware that Research in Motion is the largest R and D spender in Canada. We spend approximately $1.5 billion a year in research and development. We also offer more co-op placements than any other private sector company in the country. And we are one of NSERC's largest industrial research partners in terms of their programs across the country for partnering with universities.
We compete in a highly competitive global smart phone market, and we are in a global battle for talent. While we streamlined some of our functions last year, we currently have multiple job openings on our website, including many R and D jobs that we would prefer to locate here in Canada, as we maintain the bulk of our R and D activities here in Canada.
Nearly two-thirds of our employee base is here, and nearly half of those who live in Canada and work for us are directly engaged in R and D. But if we can't find the right candidate in Canada, we also have to consider hiring workers that result in the offshoring of jobs.
Some of the positions we are looking for are engineer specialists, test specialists, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, LTE modem developers—it's a very long list of highly skilled people that we're looking for.
In Canada, unfortunately, we continue to see declining enrollment in the so-called STEM disciplines you've heard about—science, technology, engineering, and math—making it more difficult for Canadian technology companies to find talent. As a result, the Canadian tech sector suffers.
We need to turn around the negative cultural perception that science and technology programs are for boring, awkward geniuses who work in their parents' basements. Because far from that, this is an absolutely wonderful career path that offers high value in terms of fulfillment and income.
By exposing our people to careers in ICT through business visitation programs, experimental learning opportunities, and online engagement, RIM is hoping to turn this trend around. In our operating regions, RIM employees actually go to high schools and elementary schools to discuss physics and math to try to attract students to the sector. They show them the underpinning technology of a BlackBerry—they get to take apart a BlackBerry—and show them how maths, sciences, and physics all play an important role in the development of products.
Cooperative education, which I also mentioned, is a critical way to foster the skills we need to be successful. For those of you who are familiar with the Waterloo region, co-op education from the early days of the University of Waterloo engineering program has been essential. As I mentioned, we are one of the largest private sector employers of co-op students.
It's great because they bring their own enthusiasm and attitude. They're not jaundiced by business and how it's supposed to work. They're willing to challenge. They're willing to break the old business model. At one point in RIM's history, about one out of every four employees had been a co-op student at RIM at one point.
One solution the federal government may want to consider, and I understand and RIM understands that financial constraints are here and now, is to match Ontario's co-op tax credit to increase the opportunity for co-op students to gain experience in Canadian companies. In a large number of cases, they have ended up in full-time employment after graduation.
When we're unable to find qualified candidates in Canada, the ability to relocate workers with the essential technical skills to Canada is critical. As part of this process, we frequently use LMOs, labour market opinions, from Service Canada.
However, the structure and procedure of the program unfortunately are not well suited to the demands of a dynamic labour market for highly paid IT talent. Similar to past testimony you've heard, I'll say that a technology company's number one barrier to continuing growth and success is lack of access to talent, and not just technical talent, but the business talent as well.
Two key areas to address this are easing just-in-time talent acquisition processes, and creating a culture that builds the right kind of talent. When companies find themselves needing specialized skills, they cannot afford a lengthy hiring process.
In recent months, we've unfortunately encountered increasingly long processing times for LMOs. We used to be able to count on turnaround processing times of three to four weeks, but now the LMO process adds 16 to 18 weeks in our recruitment process.
The cost to RIM in terms of lost productivity and time to market is severe. Even worse, we've lost candidates who have actually accepted positions at RIM but have not been willing or able to put their lives on hold for months due to the long period as we waited for an LMO approval.
To give you a sense of the problem in the Waterloo region, we are not the only ones facing this issue. There was a story in the Waterloo Record about how a start-up company in the region has gone out and said to anybody in the community that if they can send an engineering student to them and the student is successful in getting a job, they will pay that person $3,000 cash. That's what the problem is becoming in the whole Waterloo region.
I won't repeat the stats that David and Karna have mentioned. I'll just leave you with the thought that the ICT community has about 5% of GDP, but in an era when we're trying to look at commercialization and productivity, we also add over 30% of the country's R and D as an industry.
I want to congratulate the committee for looking at this important issue. I look forward to your questions. More importantly, I look forward to seeing your recommendations and reading your report after you're finished.
Thank you.