Quebec is hoping to recruit twice as many foreign workers to the province in the coming year though its ‘Journées Québec’, or ‘Quebec Days’ events as it did last year.
“Quebec Days consists of 17 missions abroad to recruit skilled francophone workers, particularly in occupations in high demand by Quebec businesses facing labour shortages,” said Immigration Minister Jean Boulet in French, in a press conference Monday.
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“This is a turnkey approach that allows employers to meet and interview foreign workers who have already been screened according to the skills required and level of competence sought,” he said.
Quebec Wants To Recruit 3,000 Foreign Workers Through Quebec Days In Coming Year
In the coming year, Quebec is hoping to recruit 3,000 foreign workers through this program, roughly twice the number in the year which just ended.
“Quebec must bolster its presence on the world stage and particularly in French-speaking and francophile countries which are sources of skilled workers,” said the province’s foreign affairs minister, Nadine Girault.
“Quebec Days offers excellent visibility throughout the world for Quebec businesses looking for labour in several key sectors of our economy.”
Through its Quebec Days series of events, the province will recruit foreign workers around the world in partnership with entrepreneurs, government ministries and non-governmental organizations, including economic development associations, Québec international, Montréal international and the Société de développement économique de Drummondville.
Employers with 49 employees or less are charged $1,500 to take part in Quebec Days. Those with 50 or more employees are to pay $3,000.
1.4M Jobs Up For Grabs In Quebec This Decade, 22% Filled By Immigrants
In the decade ending in 2030, the francophone province is expected to see 1.4 million job openings with 22 per cent of those jobs to be filled by immigrants, said Boulet.
Among the countries targeted for this international recruiting are Brazil, Morocco, France, Tunisia, Columbia, and Latin America.
The government and businesses participating in Quebec Days will be primarily looking for workers in the education, healthcare, childcare, information technology, engineering and construction sectors.
Weighed down by massive labour shortages, Quebec now has the second-highest number of job vacancies in Canada.
In a report entitled Regard Sur Les Postes Vacants: Un Marché Du Travail En Pleine Transformation / Données De l’Enquête Sur Les Postes Vacants Et Les Salaires – 4e Trimestre 2021 (An Overview of Job Vacancies: A Changing Labour Market / Results of a Study on Job Vacancies and Salaries during the Fourth Trimester of 2021), the Institut du Québec think tank recently noted job vacancies in Quebec remain 88 per cent higher than they were before the Covid-19 global pandemic.
“The number of job vacancies did not increase much from the third quarter, when they stood at 238,050, to the fourth quarter of 2021 when they reached 238,140,” noted the authors of the report in French.
More Jobs Than Workers Looking For Work In Quebec
“The growth in job vacancies seems to have stabilized. The percentage of vacant positions, which indicates the share of demand for labour that remains unmet, has also stabilized at six per cent, compared to 6.1 per cent during the previous trimester.”
In the past year and a half, Quebec has seen a higher level of job vacancies – and a drop in the number of workers looking for jobs. The lack of available labour has gotten so bad in the province that even if every out-of-work person landed a job, there would still be jobs going begging for a lack of people to fill them.
“There were fewer people looking for jobs in the labour market than there were jobs to fill in the period from September through to December 2021,” noted the report.
