Monthly Archives: October 2013

Canada’s skills gap continues to widen, according to study

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Skilled Workers are high in demand all over the world, including Canada.
Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

According to a new study from global recruiting firm Hays PLC, which surveyed the skills gap in 30 developed countries around the world, Canada ranks ninth for the severity of its skills shortage, and its score deteriorated in the past year.

Countries such as Japan, the United States, Germany and Sweden top the list in skilled worker shortage.

The report highlights two key findings

First, the state and the efficiency of a labour market in any particular country is not necessarily driven by the state of the economy in that point in time. Rather, the data suggests through the index that the efficiency of the labour market is driven by more structural factors. That said, the governments can introduce reforms to improve those structural factors, regardless of where they are in the economic cycle.

The second key finding that the index illustrates is that there is a very strong link between the efficiency of an educational system and the ability of that economy to produce the talent that the nation’s industries require both today and in the future. Making sure that business and the educational systems are in sync to produce sufficient numbers of the right quality graduates in the right areas for future talent. That’s the fundamental part of what drives the efficiency in any particular market.

As the global economy recovers and as the Canadian work force continues to age, without a change in policy, the situation in Canada and other developed countries will likely get worse. Canada is falling behind in implementing enough changes to meet the demand for highly skilled migration.

How to improve the skilled worker shortage and avoid disaster in the future

As according to Alistair Cox, the chief executive of Hays PLC, there are three areas where business and the governments can work together to strengthen these labour markets and reduce these inefficiencies that we see in some of these economies:

The first is for the government to foster a business environment of flexibilities, where businesses can build the work force they need for the future. This can be achieved through flexible working arrangements and skilled immigration.

The second method is to make sure that the educational system in an economy are really tuned into what businesses are going to need in the future in terms of the number of right skills.

The third is for businesses to look at their own policy in terms of attracting and retaining staff. Not just younger staff but also retaining and retraining older staff within their own work force.

Immigration Canada making changes

It’s not yet known how effective it will be, however, Canada is working on some changes in the system that are expected to be implemented in late 2014. Last year, Immigration Canada and the provinces, reached an agreement on the future of Canadian immigration system. The system will give the provinces a central role in immigrant selection. This new system will be based on a model called Expression of Interest (EOI).

The EOI model is an immigrant selection process which requires those seeking to immigrate to first file a simplified application, with immigration authorities. From that pool of applicants, the most promising candidates, based on the immigration department’s selection criteria, are then selected, and invited to submit a full application which includes documentation to prove their claimed qualifications.

Canadian Immigration Strike is Over

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The foreign service officers have ended their strike after reaching a tentative agreement with the Canadian government.

This is good news for many international students, workers and others who have been in limbo, waiting for their visas to be processed.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement, right, posted this “selfie” photo on Instagram after he and PAFSO president Tim Edwards, left, “signed a deal that is good for taxpayers & FSOs.”

The agreement between the union representing foreign service officers and the Canadian government effectively ends one of the longest strikes in the federal public service.

The new agreement moves the foreign service officers’ salaries closer to other civil servants who do similar work and who sometimes take the place of foreign service officers on postings abroad. It is expected to cost about 60% of the $4.2 million sought by the union.

As according to the CBC:

New pay steps have been added to two of the salary bands, or ranges, with another band having the lowest two steps deleted, so employees in that band start at a higher wage.

Pay steps are gradually increasing pay rates within a salary range.

The wage gap between the more junior FS-02 level of foreign service officers and the same level of commercial officers, who had been earning more, is eliminated, with two new pay steps added. Those workers will get 4.5 per cent increases per step up through the pay scales, rather than four per cent.

The gap between the FS-02s and two competing groups, the commercial officers and economic officers, is small enough “to be considered ‘at equivalent level,'” the union said to its members.

The wage gap between the more senior FS-04 level and the most junior level of public service executives is eliminated with the addition of one new pay step, the union told its members, putting the foreign service officers $875 higher at their maximum level.

The mid-range FS-03 level of foreign service officers are losing their two lowest pay steps in the range, bringing the new starting rate for the salary band to $86,604.

The high end of the FS-03 salary range will be almost $110,000 under the new agreement.

On September 13th, the Public Service Labour Relations Board ruled that the federal government had been bargaining in bad faith in its negotiation with striking diplomats:

Once the respondent entered into a negotiation of the conditions under which the determination would occur, it was under the obligation to bargain those conditions in good faith and to make every reasonable effort to conclude a collective agreement – the respondent’s actions had breached that duty – it knew or should have known that the conditions could not have been accepted by the complainant as they would have precluded the complainant from putting forward its argument to the decision maker and would have predetermined the outcome – that was unreasonable and contrary to section 106 of the Act – the respondent had crossed over from hard bargaining to surface bargaining – the respondent had engaged in bad faith bargaining

As expected, critics of the government were ready to weigh in with their thoughts. NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar:

“Canada’s international presence depends on the patriotic dedication of our talented foreign service officers. Our diplomats take on personal risk and hardship in being posted abroad — they deserve our respect and gratitude for their service to our country”

Now that that the strike is over, the foreign service officers will be working hard in order to speed up processing of the applications that have been increasing in the backlog.