What are the skills Shortages in Canada?

Canada is a land of diverse opportunities, with job prospects across the board. Based on one’s academic qualification and work experience a person can opt for a position suited with his / her capabilities. However, to avoid future complications, it is advisable to stay aligned with one line of work for at least 12 months before shifting, or a change in profession all together.  Post a considerable amount of time spent in one industry/profession, the line of work can be shifted as per the employment opportunities available in the free market, and one’s own capabilities. 

In a 2018 survey by ManpowerGroup, 41 % employers stated that found it difficult to fill out job openings. The survey also found that the high demand jobs require post-secondary training, but not necessarily university level education.

In May 2018, it was stated that Canada had created a total of one million jobs since in a span of three years. But the first quarter of 2019 still recorded over 435,000 job vacancies. Although there continues to be more jobs every year, employers continue to face difficulty in finding employees with particular skills and expertise to address their urgent needs.

To get a better perspective, a skills shortage is when an employer is unable to fill in a vacancy even with a large number of applications, owing to lack of a particular skillset required for the job at hand. Hence there is a need for more methods that can capture both the demand for and supply of workers’ skills.

Skilled workers such as mechanics, welders, and electricians have been amongst the top five high demand roles over the past decade. Sales representatives and engineering technicians also rank high on that list. Below is the detailed list:

• Doctors 
• Chef 
• Chartered Accountants 
• Indian Lawyers 
• Software Engineer 
• Teachers 
• Sales and Marketing Manager Mechanical Engineers 
• Food Technologist 
• Dentist
• Nurses 

There is a need for more foundational work to understand what a skill is and how that complements education. In response to the skilled workers shortage, the federal parties have proposed to implement programs to help train foreign workers facing barriers in employment with equal emphasis to improve the language training skill of the immigrants Canada accepts. To reach a sustainable long-term solution, the government also wants to create a system to evaluate an immigrant’s skills and training against the Canadian workforce. The plan is to focus around how they can describe and understand jobs then job seekers can have the tools and information to turn that into action.

When Canada lets in a new immigrant without a valid job offer for full-time employment in hand, it requires them to fulfil certain obligations if they are to be allowed entry. The first among these is a particular skillset must be in-high demand across the free market. The occupation in-demand is a specialized category for immigration to Canada which allows people to move to the country without having a job offer. While Canada immigration mandates that you find a job before arriving, applying through the occupation in-demand category provides an alternative route to entry. However, many obligations must be met while applying through the OID category. 

In order to ensure that immigrants are able to sustain themselves and such migration does not lead to a disguised employment scenario, the IRCC requires all persons moving to Canada through the OID category must have enough funds to support themselves and their loved ones. In fact, it goes a step further and requires the persons to have enough funds to support those members who are not immigrating with them to Canada.