Many Canadians take pride that their country being known for being diverse. Canada is a cultural mosaic, a mosaic made in great part due to immigrants and children of immigrants. That mosaic has continued to grow, as Canadian businesses are increasingly looking abroad to hire workers.<\/p>\n
One reason that Canadian businesses are hiring more foreign workers, is because there are a lot of job vacancies that need to be filled. For the past year, Canada has had a record number of job vacancies. In the third quarter of 2021<\/span><\/a>, Canada reached an all-time high of 912 600. These job vacancies were found to be consistent across all sectors, such as food services, health care, retail, and construction. The Omicron wave came shortly after the third quarter and brought a new onset of restrictions, erasing some of those job vacancies. However, the third quarter is still useful to examine as it is more comparable to 2022\u2019s current labour conditions.<\/p>\n Fast forward to today, and Canada\u2019s tight labour market continues. In addition to there just being more jobs than people, there are more part-time workers<\/span><\/a> who are not interested in full-time work, leaving more full-time job vacancies. This has caused the involuntary part-time employment rate to fall to its lowest level on record.<\/p>\n Based on the 2021 Census, a substantial portion of Canada\u2019s population is close to retirement. Currently 1 in 5, or 21.8%<\/span><\/a> of Canada\u2019s population is 55 to 64 years old. Canada\u2019s labour market has never consisted of so many people close to retirement age. Canada\u2019s labour market is already tight \u2013 and while conditions surrounding COVID-19 may change, as the years pass, more and more of that 21.8% of Canadians will retire, meaning more job vacancies.<\/p>\n The labour effects of having over one-fifth of Canada\u2019s workforce close to retiring are exacerbated by Canada\u2019s low fertility rate for the past 50 years, meaning not enough people have been born over the past five decades to help fill upcoming job vacancies. Only two provinces, Alberta, and Saskatchewan have more people under the age of 15 than those 65 and older. In other words, be it trends brought upon in the short term through COVID, or long-standing population trends, vacancies are here to stay \u2013 and companies need solutions to fill those vacancies.<\/p>\n In response to record job vacancies, the Federal Government has made recent reforms to the immigration process to bring foreign talent to Canada. By searching for talent beyond their own borders, Canadian companies are in part finding immigrants as the solution to filling their vacant jobs. While current immigration levels are not substantial enough to fill all job vacancies, Statistics Canada has noted that immigrants do have a \u201crejuvenating effect on the Canadian population.\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\nThe Need for Talent Will Only Continue<\/h3>\n
Immigration Helps and the Government Agrees<\/h3>\n