Evidence of meeting #9 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was programs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor, As an Individual
I'm not sure I can link it directly to youth employment, but I think it's fair to say that if the energy sector were allowed to grow more quickly, it would improve employment generally in Canada.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I'll lay out a few facts. Fort McMurray has a very young population base. We have a very high percentage of people who work in the energy industry. Therefore, there is a high percentage of young people who are working in the energy industry.
When you are doing things to restrict the energy industry from growing and are, in fact, actively shutting it down, it has to have an impact on youth employment.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mrs. Goodridge. Your time is gone.
Ms. Desrochers, you have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Caroline Desrochers Liberal Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to the witnesses for being here today.
I'll share my time with Natilien. Can you please let me know when there's one minute left? Parfait.
These are challenging times for Canadians and our economy. It's challenging for young Canadians as well. I think we are tackling that. We've taken a lot of action in the last few months. I don't want to spend too much time on that.
I want to go back to something that was said about an analysis or a lack thereof. We publish a labour force survey every month. The last one was published on October 10.
I want to go back to the temporary foreign worker program because I'd like to understand something that has been brought up by previous witnesses as well. Just to be clear, temporary foreign workers are a last resort. I think they make up 1% of our labour force. For an employer, there's a huge administrative burden in getting a temporary foreign worker in addition to having to do the labour market impact assessment and proving they cannot find someone else, having to pay them a premium, in many cases, and having to find housing for them.
I'm trying to understand what the business argument is for a small business to say, “I will go through all of that burden so I can avoid hiring a Canadian worker who is in the country.” If you have that answer, please share it with me, because I'm missing something here.
My first question is for Mr. Lang. I'm going to ask my second question right away, and I'd like us to make sure we leave him time to answer.
I'd like to come back to my colleague Mrs. Gill's question. We didn't have time to get into it a lot, but I think it's a critical question.
In recent years, have you seen any changes in the kinds of jobs that young people take on and the way they want to enter the labour market?
What has changed that led to a gap? As my colleague said, clearly, there are areas where there are positions open, and I don't think that just increasing the wage we're paying them is viable for businesses. Otherwise, they would be doing that.
What are the things that have changed in terms of how youth are entering the job market and what kinds of jobs they're willing to take? I'll stop here.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Youth Employment Services
I've been with Youth Employment Services for 10 years. We haven't seen much change in the way things have been done in recent years.
The big change is how employers are hiring young people. Most of the problems stem from many young people not knowing what kinds of jobs are out there, so it's important that organizations like mine be able to provide information to young people.
Not knowing what's out there is a real problem. We often hear from businesses that they're looking for employees.
They think that doesn't make sense. How can there be young people looking for work when the organizations can't find people? Organizations like ours are good for that match—
President and Chief Executive Officer, Youth Employment Services
—but as far as expectations....
Liberal
Caroline Desrochers Liberal Trois-Rivières, QC
Maybe, I'll just go to Mr. Worswick because I want to leave some time for my colleague, Natilien.
Go ahead.
Professor, As an Individual
Just really quickly in response, a labour force survey is a dataset; it's not analysis. I was saying that I have not seen analysis, and if any of you have analysis, I'd be happy to—
Liberal
Caroline Desrochers Liberal Trois-Rivières, QC
Really, my key question is why someone would go out of their way to pay more and have more administrative burden to hire someone?
Professor, As an Individual
It's because of productivity.
The article I mentioned in the document I submitted to the committee cites my co-authored Canadian Journal of Economics article where we looked at the data. We found that temporary foreign workers worked longer hours, were less likely to be laid off and had lower turn over, presumably because they have to go back to their home country if they quit, so the firms get higher productivity from temporary foreign workers.
You are right that there are extra costs, but I suspect it's because of higher productivity.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Ms. Desrochers. You only had five minutes.
It's over.
Thank you, Madame Desrochers.
I'm going to go to Madame Gill for two and a half minutes to conclude this round.
Bloc
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
We'll start with Madame Gill, and then we'll go to Monsieur Joseph.
Mrs. Gill, you have the floor for two minutes.
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC
My question is for you, Mr. Worswick.
You said that eliminating the temporary foreign worker program would be a solution.
Do you think parts of the economy in certain regions will simply have to die out? I talked about fisheries and restaurants. Would we tell those employers that they don't fit into the logic of the market, that they don't have workers and therefore they have to just shut down?
Professor, As an Individual
I'm more confident talking about restaurants than I am about fisheries.
My sense on restaurants is that you may see turnover of restaurants. Some restaurants may close. Others will open. However, I think that this idea of trying to keep wages low and fill positions at low wages to keep restaurants working in smaller areas is ultimately self-defeating. If the wages were to rise, young people in those regions would be less likely to leave.
I think it would be better to keep the temporary foreign worker program out of the service sector as much as possible.
What's unclear to my mind is that whether fisheries are the same as agriculture. I don't feel like I know enough about the fisheries sector to know for sure, but I think that's the question in my mind.
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC
In my riding, there is the regional county municipality, or RCM, where salaries are the highest. People live there, but some jobs still need to be filled by temporary foreign workers. We don't necessarily have a shortage of jobs, but we do have diversity.
That's more of a comment than a question. I think we really need to make some distinctions, and I thank Mr. Worswick for doing so.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Madame Gill.
We'll now go to Mr. Reynolds for two minutes.
Conservative
Colin Reynolds Conservative Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses. I'll pose my first question to both of you.
Mr. Worswick, could you answer first?
I'm a Red Seal electrician. I've been in the trade for 20 years. In your research, have you seen a decline of interest in skilled trades among the youth of today?
Professor, As an Individual
That's a great question.
I haven't noticed a decline, but I think it would benefit Canada if more youth were interested in the trades, the skilled trades in particular. I'm not sure that I have a great answer to your question, but I think it's an important area that we should be encouraging more young people to look at.
Conservative
President and Chief Executive Officer, Youth Employment Services
I have basically the same response. We've seen an increase in interest in the trades, which is good, but we believe that there should be an even greater increase. Again, for many generations, unfortunately, it's like you had to be a doctor or a lawyer. We have to continue the education of young people—and again, replicating Germany and places like that—and say that this is a great career that helps build our nation, and it's a great long-term career, as you know.