Alberta businesses have a role to play easing the province’s labour shortage by improving workplace conditions and wage levels to attract and retain highly skilled workers, says the president and CEO of the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
“Some employers say: ‘I don’t need to pay any more. I can get immigrants in here and pay them at a very low rate.’ And that discourages our youth, our potential audience from coming in and taking other kinds of post-secondary training,” Irene Lewis told a business audience in Calgary last week.
Citing figures from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Lewis noted that labour shortfalls continue to plague small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) across Canada, with an estimated 38,000 SME job vacancies here in Alberta.
“This is especially troubling in the context of an economic recovery, where labour shortages will further limit the ability of companies to expand and to prosper,” she said.
While this province is experiencing an influx of new arrivals seeking work, they don’t necessarily have the skills in demand here.
Alberta industries expected to suffer the most acute labour shortages include health, construction, and information and communications technologies (ICT). And while Lewis says SAIT has made great strides in changing attitudes about trades and technical training, many still mistakenly believe these are somehow low-value, or ‘dirt-under-the-fingernails’ careers.
According to Alberta’s Labour Force Planning Committee report last fall, industry must address the labour market’s needs by ensuring wages are competitive, providing better work benefits and rewards, providing a challenging and quality work environment, and committing to professional development.
But Lewis says some employers may still believe that it is business as usual or are willing to change, but don’t know how to attract and retain skilled employees.
“Perhaps businesses are still in a traditional thinking mode that we have enough people out there that would be willing to do low-paying or minimum- wage jobs – not recognizing that they also have cost of living increases and daily needs,” Lewis said following her speech at the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.
“There is a benefit to business to hire the best, and to pay better.”
SAIT is working to address what Lewis calls the “human capital crisis” by partnering with industry and government and initiating joint ventures with other post-secondary institutes to develop new strategies around three specific factors contributing to the labour shortage: the increased skills demanded by the knowledge-based economy, the aging workforce and the need for a stronger learning system to meet new challenges.
One of those partnerships was announced last week, with Calgary-based oil and gas giant EnCana unveiling a $1.2-million contribution toward distance education training programs offered through SAIT relating to the energy industry.
“Skills-based educational institutes like ours play a major role in providing industry with skilled employees,” Lewis said.
“But educational institutes are just one part of what must be, from our perspective, a multi-faceted solution.”
