To alleviate its growing skills shortage amid a global competition for talent, Canada should follow Alberta’s example and recruit American workers, according to a new study by The Conference Board of Canada.
In 2012, Alberta, the province with the most severe skills shortage in the country, started a pilot project that brought almost 1,000 highly skilled U.S. workers, particularly for resource projects. The study examines Alberta’s strategy and discusses lessons from it that may apply to other parts of Canada.
“With 50,000 unfilled vacancies and more than double that number expected within a decade, the labour and skills shortage has a direct impact on Alberta’s ability to develop its resource and energy sector,” says Laura Dawson, author of the study, called Skills in Motion: U.S. Workers May Hold the Key to Canada’s Skills Shortage. “That is not just a regional problem; it affects our national economic prospects as well.”
Many Alberta companies consider Americans to be ideal for their job openings because they have similar training and experience. Additionally, they understand the language and work culture, and they can live not too far from home.
However, the report notes that it is not easy to bring in U.S. workers in skilled trades. For instance, the North American Free Trade Agreement does not allow mutual recognition between Canada and the U.S. for regulated trades and professions.
As a result, Alberta’s Department of Apprenticeship and Industry Training has stepped in to provide its own evaluation of workers’ foreign credentials and experience. The province has also launched a recruitment campaign south of the border.
The report argues that employers throughout Canada should learn from Alberta’s experience. While companies should first consider domestic workers to fill vacancies, they need to recognize that this is rarely enough to meet employee demand for resource mega-projects, the study says.
It notes that governments, businesses and unions need to go beyond simply allowing temporary workers in—they also need to work together to recognize credentials and eliminate obstacles to worker certification.
Apart from attracting employees, Alberta faces the challenge of retaining them, according to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. In a 2012 report—Canada’s Skills Crisis: What We Heard,—the organization surveyed employers and found out that high turnover is a big problem. “One participant reported an 87% turnover rate in downtown Calgary and 30% or higher in the field,” the study says. “Another employer said that 70% of their employees have been with the company for less than two years.”
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