Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to be here today to provide CFIB's perspective on the Atlantic growth strategy's immigration pilot.
CFIB, as you may know, is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization representing 109,000 small and medium-sized businesses across the country representing all sectors of the economy. We take direction solely from our members. I'm going to share with you, rather quickly I will say, some surveys we've taken throughout the area and some of the data we have for you.
The first slide you will see is on SME priority issues. I think you will understand why we're showing you this, as the shortage of qualified labour is one of the largest issues facing SMEs in this country, at around 45%.
The next slide you will see is CFIB's business barometer. I want to note that Atlantic Canada's small business confidence has shown some slow but steady progress since last fall. Short-term hiring plans are consistent with the trends we see at this time of year. The chart you have in front of you is the Canadian index, but there are some seasonal factors now that are contributing to slight improvements throughout the Atlantic region.
As I noted a little bit earlier, labour availability is very important to SMEs. While some dispute that there is a labour skill shortage in Canada, our members indicate that this is a serious and growing shortage of qualified people in many sectors in many regions in the country. The shortage remains an important factor limiting many small and medium-sized businesses from growing.
This is further reinforced by what you will see on the next page, which is CFIB's quarterly help wanted report that looks at private sector job vacancies. It found that the national vacancy rate is at about 2.4%, which represents 300,000 private sector job openings that have been unfilled for the last four months because business owners have been unable to find suitable employees.
In Atlantic Canada, the rate ranges from 2% to 2.5%, with construction, hospitality, and agriculture each facing vacancy rates of around 3%. Immigration and programs like the temporary foreign worker program are important tools to help some small business employers address these labour shortages.
More than half are looking to fill jobs that require on-the-job training, which can be categorized as NOC, national occupational classification, level C, or more likely level D. Almost half are looking to fill jobs with a NOC level C that require occupation-specific training. One-third are looking at college diploma/apprenticeship training at NOC level B. Fewer than 10% are looking at NOC level A, or people with a university education.
There are those who claim that businesses are not doing enough to attract and retain Canadian workers. The next slide will show you that this is not the case. Entrepreneurs are doing many things to attract and retain Canadian workers, because they would much prefer to have a Canadian working than to go through a lengthy and costly immigration process. Our slide shows how entrepreneurs are expanding their search for workers.
The next slide shows the types of positions being filled by TFWs, temporary foreign workers. These jobs are being filled by TFWs because Canadian employers cannot find homegrown workers. If you break out the data by sector, it will show that needs for different types of workers vary significantly depending on the industry in question.
It is also important to note that almost six in 10 respondents said that having access to temporary foreign workers allows them to keep their businesses open and keep the Canadian workers in those businesses employed. Another 48% believe it allowed them to expand. On the following slide, I would welcome you to take just a few moments, perhaps a little later, to look at some of the comments surrounding this from our members.
The next chart is evidence of some of the difficulties in the system—and I don't think they'll be strange to you—the pinch points being timelines, paperwork, and government customer service. Most of this is not found in the immigration department per se, but in Service Canada.
Beside the red tape and headaches are the costs. Before businesses can hire a foreign worker, they typically have to take a series of steps, including advertising, wage approval, return airfare, accommodation, recruiting fees, and the list goes on. Sixty-eight per cent of business owners said that the TFWs cost more than Canadian workers, but we are seeing some improvements.
As you'll see on the next page, we are pleased to see the four-in, four-out rule being eliminated. There is also a small victory in allowing businesses in the program prior to June 2014 to maintain a 20% cap on the proportion of lower-wage TFWs who can be employed by one employer, and an exemption of the cap for seasonal industries until the end of 2017. We are encouraged, as well, by announcements around the global skills strategy, including faster processing of permits.
We are also very pleased to see the work being done on the Atlantic immigration pilot. One of the key improvements I want to point out here is the elimination of the need for a labour market impact assessment, or LMIA. It has been a problem for our members, and it is costly and a time constraint. Less stringent advertising confirmation requirements, as well as speed of processing, are another important improvement. We are very happy to see the addition of skill level C, intermediate jobs or jobs usually needing high school or job-specific training.
We do believe, however, that more consideration should be given to businesses' capacity to provide integration services for new Canadians as that demand is being made upon them.
We are watching this program carefully to examine the uptake and the impact on the needs of those in the SME labour sector.
These changes can be a vital lifeline for many entrepreneurs, and CFIB has been making recommendations along those lines for some time, including our introduction to Canada visa program. We are supportive of the new express entry system that we have in this country, which allows employers to have a greater role in selecting immigrants. Unfortunately, a closer look at the details reveals that the new system will still not help employers looking to fill entry-level jobs that are classified as lower-skill positions. We are suggesting that employers with staffing needs at all skill levels should be permitted participation in selecting workers through express entry.
We proposed a bill of rights for temporary foreign workers, including such things as better documentation of working conditions, employer-provided accommodation and standards, and an internal dispute resolution process for employers and employees.
We hope to learn from the Atlantic pilot project, and we hope that some of the lessons we learn are applied to the immigration system more broadly.
Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to taking your questions.