Four labour force megatrends are now converging to create a “perfect storm” in the workforce in New Brunswick and across Canada. The impact on employers and job seekers will be more profound than anything in living memory. The four megatrends are:
Megatrend 1: The Great Recession
The global economy and communities across the country have just weathered their worst economic down-turn since the Great Depression nearly a century ago. Despite massive economic stimulus, recovery is slow and faltering, fiscal deficits are at record levels, and budgets are being slashed.
Megatrend 2: Aging Population
Over the next 15 years, baby boomers will retire in virtual annual tsunamis leaving a void in the labour force. With the decline in birth rates in recent decades, even with aggressive immigration projections, the worker shortfall in New Brunswick and across Canada will grow alarmingly in coming decades.
Megatrend 3: Upskilling of Jobs
Accelerating technological advances have rendered many jobs obsolete, raised skill requirements in remaining jobs, and are producing new jobs at an unimagined rate. More formal education, technical training, and “soft skills” are now demanded of all workers. Employers need IT-literate people who are responsible, can problem-solve, innovate, and collaborate effectively, and have a thirst for learning. It is estimated that 70-80% of all new jobs now require some post-secondary education. Yet, of 100 students in the educational pipeline in grade 9 only 29 will graduate on time with a post-secondary degree, diploma or certificate. 50% of will not be in programs directly related to their studies within 2 years.
Megatrend 4: Unprepared Workforce
Few employers are investing adequately in employee career management and training. Too few workers themselves are investing in upgrading their skills. Many students, at all levels, fail to see personal relevance in their academic studies, thus underachieve.
The storm portends are clear. Many Canadian companies, workers and communities are at risk of becoming storm casualties. The basic building blocks of a whole-community approach to career and workforce development exist but tend to be used in fragmented fashion and underutilized.
Consensus on “best practices” suggests a core of 5 foundation career and workforce resources need to be in place. They include:
1. Experiential programs at all primary, middle, secondary and post-secondary school levels that help students imagine the future they want to create, and make career and educational planning “real” for students;
2. A comprehensive Internet-based career exploration and planning system accessible by students at all levels and adults;
3. An electronic portfolio system accessible through all educational levels out into adulthood;
4. A course planner system for students, teachers and parents that integrates individual learning plans based on informed career goals with local course offerings and graduation requirements; and
5. A networking system that introduces motivated students with informed dreams to the people they need to meet in educational and training institutions and local companies. Resulting relationships can lead to work experience, mentoring, job shadowing, co-op, volunteer, and part-time job opportunities that allow employers and job-seekers to “test the fit.”
1. Experiential programs at all primary, middle, secondary and post-secondary school levels that help students imagine the future they want to create, and make career and educational planning “real” for students;
2. A comprehensive Internet-based career exploration and planning system accessible by students at all levels and adults;
3. An electronic portfolio system accessible through all educational levels out into adulthood;
4. A course planner system for students, teachers and parents that integrates individual learning plans based on informed career goals with local course offerings and graduation requirements; and
5. A networking system that introduces motivated students with informed dreams to the people they need to meet in educational and training institutions and local companies. Resulting relationships can lead to work experience, mentoring, job shadowing, co-op, volunteer, and part-time job opportunities that allow employers and job-seekers to “test the fit.”
As a member of Tech South East, National LifeWork Centre(a division of the Memramcook Institute); we welcome opportunities to partner with Tech Southeast and it members to implement a harmonized, whole-community approach to career and workforce development in Southeast New Brunswick to ensure our region prospers despite the perfect storm.
Phil Jarvis
National LifeWork Centre
It seems like the solutions proposed are all about helping future workers when the problems will clearly be on the side of retirees, businesses and government.
ReplyDeleteHere is a bit of economy 101: A shortage of workers, means high demand and the prices of workers (wages) going up and unemployment going down. The workers will be, relatively speaking, well served in this environment. They will need less skills to get more money and have more opportunities to start work or internships early and train on the job.
Businesses and government on the other hand will need to pay more for workers so they will need to rely more on automation and technology where manual work becomes too costly. Where work is impossible to automate, higher labor costs will have to be passed on to the consumers. This is where retirees come in play. With little means of increasing their revenues and with uncertainty in the value of their retirement savings the higher costs of labor means they will get less for their money.
The situation may cause the economy to suffer. The pie might get smaller, but it is the workers that will get the long end of the stick and be in a position to get the biggest slice of the pie. Retirees, businesses and government will be the ones who struggle. This is simple offer and demand.
I am not too worried for the upcoming retirees as they enjoyed exceptionally high returns on their investment during their career and have bigger pensions than the next generation will ever be able to accumulate.
The sectors that will need to be helped most is business and government. They will needs to be more efficient so that they can maintain their productivity with less available workers.
The tech sector will be key in this endeavor. Making people more efficient with new technologies will allow them to do more with less help and prevent 'the pie' from shrinking too much. How is that for a conclusion in a tech business blog.
Great economics 101 lesson! The new wrinkle in the traditional supply/demand logic is that we are already seeing high unemployment coexisting (not diminishing) with increasing shortage of skilled talent. Most of the jobs looking for people don’t want the people looking for jobs. They don’t have the necessary education and training, and/or what are now considered essential 21st century workplace skills.
ReplyDeleteIn the past this would be an obvious job-seekers buyer’s market. In fact, for those who know where they’re going and are willing to do what it takes to qualify for jobs in emerging market sectors, like ICT, it will be – if not here, elsewhere. However, those who can be replaced by a machine or new technology, those who saw no point in pursuing a good education, and those who aren’t prepared to acquire 21st century skills, or who feel they have an entitlement to support from their government and fellow citizens, are going to have a rough ride.
I agree there will be major challenges for governments and businesses. Governments spend vast sums annually on an education system that is not preparing young people for the 21st century workplace or, for that matter, life. Too many students graduate with no idea what to do after the final bell rings. Many are deeply in student loan depth, and financially illiterate. Yet, graduates are the success stories. Those who drop out along the way, physically or emotionally, are truly behind the 8 ball at the very start of their careers.
Related government expenditures are also massive. With better mechanisms to connect talent and opportunity, significant savings ($10's of millions annually) could be realized in employment insurance, social assistance and welfare, corrections, rehabilitation, health, and other public budget items that severely impede deficit and debt reduction.
Governments must get expenditures under control through an unprecedented and permanent shrinking of programs and services. This leaves the business community to lead us out of the hole we’re in. Economic prosperity for our region and province can only happen if businesses are competitive, successful, and grow.
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ReplyDeleteSome companies consider their people their most valuable asset. Some view employees as an unavoidable expense. Few companies pursue talent with the determination of either amateur or professional sports teams.
If an 8 year old boy, for example, has obvious hockey talent, we wrap a cocoon of support around him – skills and conditioning training, development of character and connections, encouragement and support with studies, etc. – to maximize his chances of success in a professional career. Scouts from various potential “employers” (paid and unpaid) will eventually find this child and begin courting. In virtually all other walks of life young people have to find their way through the educational maze, often with no informed career guidance. It isn’t until they graduate, if they do, that they begin seriously to consider where they might land in the workforce.
I’m not suggesting companies should start seeking their future talent before they reach puberty. The solution Career Cruising and the Memramcook Institute offer here, as in other provinces, states, and countries, includes online tools to help students explore career options sooner, and better (now licensed to over 30,000 North American schools), and choose courses that qualify them for the post-secondary programs they will need to interest employers in their chosen sector. To the extent employers participate, with minimal effort and no cost, students can learn what local employers are seeking future employees in occupations they are targeting. All teachers, not just guidance counsellors, and all parents, can support students in this process, each with 24/7 access to a harmonized set of online tools. On the flip side, employers can identify the best possible candidates to meet their future talent needs while they are still in the 10th, 11th, or 12th grade, or at any level in an apprenticeship, college, or university. This could lead, one step at a time, always by mutual agreement (not locked-in commitment), to site visits, job-shadowing, mentorships, co-op ed or work experience programs, possibly summer jobs, and eventually full-time employment.
Most students who see light at the end of the educational pipeline in terms of a potential job that excites them with a local company become more engaged with their education. They become intentional about improving their grades and practising the workplace essential, skills, habits and attitudes their potential future employer is encouraging them to hone. This relieves considerable stress from teachers and parents (you may be one, as I am). Employers who begin to see a pipeline of promising future talent lining up to land with their firm in the next year, two, three, or more, feel more secure in the face of forecasted increasing worker shortage.
The pie doesn’t have to shrink for businesses that view employees with leading edge skills and fully committed to their employer’s success as their key asset.
Phil Jarvis, VP Global Partnerships
National LifeWork Centre