Labour Shortage and Immigration Solutions

On April 30, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenny took the stage in a Calgary conference room to speak to the residential construction industry and petroleum industry to provide an update on the growing labour shortage concerns.  The problems he speaks of is how the province is going to replace an expected 34,000 retirees while accommodating a rise in demand of 37,500, for construction alone (Constructions Sector Council 2012-2020 Report).
Minister Kenney spoke of a broken immigration system, one that takes seven years to process an application.  The government is revamping the process with the goal of dropping the time frame to a few months.  The federal government is also looking to improve the Temporary Foreign Worker program by providing an accelerated labour market opinion in ten days or less.  Appealing to the construction industry is the exempt trades list, whereby an immigrant can provide certification or licensing in an approved trade and be granted a work visa with proof of employment. Canadian Home Builders’ Association Lethbridge Region welcomes the changes to the Temporary Foreign worker program.  “While our local labour pool still has the employees we need, we are seeing in northern markets, Calgary and Edmonton, that the labour pool is shrinking quickly” states Stephen Amonson, Board President.  Further, “having a system that allows for reaching skilled labour pools in other countries is advantageous to both the employer and consumer.”  The Minister concluded his remarks by describing the new system is designed to be user friendly to small to medium size business as well, allowing those companies without dedicated Human Resource departments and immigration lawyers on retainer to access foreign workers when needed.  
Construction Sector Council of Canada predicts that by 2014 new construction and renovations employment demands will be above that of the 2006 peak. CHBA-LR is focused on working with all level of governments to insure that labour pools will be accessible to members of all sizes.