The Gandalf Group conducts a quarterly C-Suite survey of corporate executives across Canada sponsored by KPMG. 151 C-level executives were interviewed between February 10th and 27th, 2012.
Labour challenges
The survey found that most of the companies are reporting difficulty in finding qualified employees and that for a segment of companies it’s a very acute concern. About a third report the labour shortage is preventing their company from growing. Even more said they increasingly have to look outside of Canada to fill specific jobs. Engineers, those with technical skills or trades people and some IT professionals are top mentions of positions or skills that are difficult to find.
48% of respondents said that they expected the Canadian economy to have a greater percentage of skilled workers than today.
70% aggreed that labour shortages stand to get much worse for companies because of baby boomers' retirement.
Budget priorities
The survey questions about the Federal budget demonstrate how central labour market questions are to the repondents.
The number one priority is increased investment in skills training. Even among the minority who want aggressive deficit reduction, about one in three identified increased investments in skills training as a high priority. Western Canadian executives tended to add fast-tracking applications from skilled immigrants as something the government must make a priority.
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