Industry Committee on April 26th, 2022

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

All right. I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Mr. Williams for five minutes.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My questions will be for Mr. Bates on Canada's skilled labour shortage.

Are you aware of a number for what the labour shortage is costing the economy right now? Have you seen reports on that or is your department aware of that?

[Chris Bates]

Yes, there are many reports out there on the cost of it.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Do you have or are you aware of any numbers?

[Chris Bates]

I do not have numbers in front of me.

We've looked at a number of studies with some pretty significant numbers that have been released by different groups, such as the Chamber of Commerce and so forth.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

As with any other questions I'll ask today, can you please submit them to committee, if you can?

You talked about some barriers to language training to being one of the holdbacks for immigration and skilled immigrants to the country. Do you have a number of how many skilled immigrants are waiting to do language training or testing at this point?

[Chris Bates]

Thank you for the question.

From an ESDC perspective, we're more on the credential recognition side. Those types of questions would have to be directed at IRCC, as they take care of the language training component.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

That's no problem. I'm just going to stick to where you see barriers, then.

Are there streamlining processes that you could recommend that would help to alleviate that? I know you've talked about some other barriers, but I've heard a number as high as 1.8 million people who are waiting for language training. Are there recommendations you could submit to the committee on how we can streamline that and make that quicker?

[Chris Bates]

Yes, we are looking at barriers as a whole. We know there are systemic, work experience and language barriers. We could submit to the committee some of the key barriers that we have.

That's why we're investing over $100 million of new money in the foreign credential recognition program: It's to help alleviate those barriers and make sure that we utilize skilled newcomers to their full potential.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

You talked about youth, which was 4.9 million by 2028. Seniors account for 18% of Canada's population now and will be one-fifth of Canada's population by 2025. Seniors are going to be the biggest.... They call it the “grey resignation”. Have you heard of that? How many seniors are you seeing come out of the workforce by 2028, as much as we have youth going into it?

[Chris Bates]

I don't have details on the numbers. I know that we are looking at all areas of potential to contribute to the skills and talent and the labour market shortages that we have. Especially when you look at the potential for part-time work, how do we leverage all the knowledge and expertise that a more experienced worker has? How do we leverage that to train the younger generation? We have different initiatives in place, such as mentorship, which is more project-based. As a whole, we need to look at all areas of participants in the economy.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

I agree. I think you had youth and the ones who aren't participating, but on the seniors, there will be 7.6 million people retiring by 2028, from the reports I've read. Does that sound in the ballpark when we have about 4.9 million youth coming in? Is there going to be a gap from seniors to youth coming in, from the first part that you identified for labour?

[Chris Bates]

Yes. As we have an aging society, we know that as they leave, there will be gaps in the labour market as a result of just pure demographics.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Okay. Do you have any data on the participation rate? Is the participation rate in Canada dropping for the labour market?

[Chris Bates]

I'm sorry. Is that in particular to seniors or in general?

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

We see unemployment rates drop, but it's about the participation rate. In terms of those who are willing to look for a job, are we aware of those statistics? Are they dropping as well, or are they increasing?

[Chris Bates]

I'm sorry, but I don't have those stats on me.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

You can send those to the committee. That would be fantastic, sir.

I have one last question.

I'm going to talk about one issue specifically: skilled labour for small business. An example would be home builders. We know that right now we need to build 1.8 million new homes to start to solve the housing crisis.

In my region, we have an incredible skilled labour shortage. Is there an emphasis for the government to look at skilled labour shortages in homebuilding, such as plumbers, electricians and framers? Is there an emphasis on starting to fill those skilled trades?

[Chris Bates]

Yes, there is an emphasis, as I mentioned previously. In budget 2021, there was $470 million that was invested over three years in a new apprenticeship service to help SMEs onboard and hire first-year apprentices. They can receive up to $5,000 for the first apprentice they hire and then an additional $5,000 if they hire from an equity-deserving group.

There was also a doubling of the union training and innovation program to $50 million annually. Looking at that, it's all about apprenticeship in the construction trades: plumbers, welders, pipefitters, carpenters, etc.

All those initiatives are aimed at supporting more apprentices to help do things like build homes.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Bates. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Erskine-Smith, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much.

I want to start with Mr. Bates.

You indicated there are hundreds of thousands of job vacancies. I also understand, though, that there are over one million jobless workers who say they want to work. When you identify the job vacancies, you have different categories, but the largest category is low-wage work.

Are you familiar with the April 4 announcement from Employment and Social Development Canada related to the expansion of the TFW program? I assume you're familiar with it.

[Chris Bates]

Yes.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

There is a Professor Skuterud from the University of Waterloo. He would ask this question, which I would echo:

We expect workers to compete for scarce jobs when labour markets are slack. Why don't we expect businesses to compete for scarce workers when markets are tight?