The pandemic has caused a major decline in the labor force of skilled workers in Quebec
The number of job openings in Quebec is far more than the number of workers applying for them. The province had a low rate of unemployment. The provincial government of Quebec is proposing various measures to resolve the issue of labor shortage.
As travel-related restrictions were imposed during the COVID, the situation of labor shortage has worsened in the province. The number of labor shortages has significantly increased and many new challenges have been highlighted after the pandemic.
A report named Bilan 2021 de l’emploi au Québec : Transformations sectorielles et déficit de compétences en vue has proposed interrogations regarding the labor shortage being severely affected by the pandemic.
The Chief Executive Officer of Institute du Québec, Mia Homsy mentioned how 2022 started with the lowest rate of unemployment and highest number of job openings.
She further stated that labor work participation will continue to fall for people aged more than 55 till the sectors like school, government, and businesses don’t step up to sift to prefer the management of human resources. This will always remain a big problem for least labor recovery.
Challenges in 2022
According to the report, the increased proportion of the elderly population will continue to be a threat to the labor market. As the workers are retiring in this phase of large job openings with low unemployment. Moreover, workers aged more than 55 are not completely returning to work.
Also, sectors like food services, accommodation services, and retail services are also facing a massive issue of unfilled job openings. This is also leading to a downturn in businesses as well.
With the advent of work-from-home jobs during the pandemic, jobs that do not provide this option are being least preferred by the employees. This brings to the point that the employers looking for potential workers need to bring down their hiring standards, especially for the educational industry.
If this is implemented, then the educational requirements will not be rigid like pre-pandemic and various specialized training will be provided to the employees for professional development and matching up with the trend.
Employers are searching for candidates who have better communication skills, comprehensive skills, oration skills. While on the other hand, the province of Quebec and many other provinces are trying to adopt digital literacy. Still, the need for qualified highly skilled workers in sectors like education, healthcare, and IT is still increasing.
Measures adopted by the province of Quebec
The province is highly focused on dealing with the problem of labor shortage. This is why the government of Quebec has started to increase the number of immigrants invited to the province. Not only this, the government has asked the employers to hire temporary foreign workers to improve the situation of labor shortage.
The province of Quebec s soon going to invite a total of 52,500 permanent immigrants this year. The majority of immigrants coming this year are from the categories of Quebec Experience Program and Quebec Skilled Worker Program.
The province is also inviting additional 18,000 immigrants to accomplish its unfulfilled immigration targets of 2020 which couldn’t be completed because of the pandemic. In total, seventy thousand new immigrants will enter the province this year.
The province had made reforms for temporary workers by allowing their capacity at the workplace to up to 20% which was earlier 10%. This is applicable to sectors like food services, accommodation services, retail services, etc.
Jobs mentioned in NOC skill level C will be categorized under Traitement Simplifie and will be in effect from May 24. This reform gives more freedom to employers for TFWP. Earlier, jobs listed in NOC skills level A, B, and 0 only had the freedom for facilitated processing, but this has also been changed by NOC D jobs exempted from hiring and advertising facilities.
All these measures are taken in favor of improving the labor force of the province through immigration. Although the rate of employment among new immigrants was around 76% in the previous year it was only 64% in 2019.
By the end of the previous year, the rate of employment among immigrants rose to 83% which was only 78% in 2019.
