Province faces labour shortage: report
 
By Andrea MacDonald
The Daily News

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia is facing a labour crisis that won’t be easily resolved, according to the 2006-07 Knowledge Economy Report Card issued yesterday by NovaKnowledge.

The non-profit group includes industry and government workers as well as educators and community leaders.

“There are simply not enough young people in the province to fill these jobs,” the report reads, “and there are not enough immigrants to make up the difference.”

Recent economic forecasts suggest that even doubling the annual number of immigrants nationally to 400,000 won’t be enough to fill the void, the report notes.

Why a crisis? Nova Scotia is aging faster than the country as a whole, and has a shrinking population on top of skill shortages in some sectors. It’s also known to be a pit stop for immigrants.

NovaKnowledge presented its predictions on the future workforce at a summit held in Halifax yesterday. Members say the province’s prosperity depends on new levels of co-operation between bosses, parents, schools, labour and government.     

Dalhousie University professor Jim McNiven predicts Nova Scotia will run out of available labour in less than 10 years. This province is producing one-third fewer children than required to replace retiring workers, he noted, a trend that has been in place for 20 years.

McNiven suggested it’s time to rethink mandatory retirement ages, as the population moves away from hard labour and toward desk jobs.  “The attitude is, the earlier you’re out of there, (the better).”

Jeff Somerville, director of Grant Thornton LLP, said Nova Scotia is doing a relatively poor job of retaining graduates. It’s hard to compete on salary, so we need to be more creative with things like partnerships, he said.

Young people need to be encouraged to stick with school or upgrade their education, he added. Literacy is also a problem.

Other speakers suggested better workplace training, more flex-time and using “underskilled” workers more.

Warren Jestin, senior vice-president and chief economist for Scotiabank and yesterday’s keynote speaker, said the problems are not unique to Nova Scotia, though they may be more acute here.

“In the past, we used to say if we didn’t have enough carpenters or pipe fitters or electricians, we’d get them from somewhere else. But there’s a global shortage now, whether it’s in Australia or Asia or in Europe.

“And we’ve got to stop thinking about grabbing things from abroad, and (ensure) that what we do here effectively trains those individuals.”

amacdonald@hfxnews.ca