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Will You Be Ready for 2011? - Quantity

2011? My brother was born in 1946, at the leading edge of the Baby Boom. Last year he turned 60. In 2011, he will be 65. 2011, then, is time when the first Boomers reach the “retirement age”. Many, like my brother, will retire sooner. Others will continue working beyond age 65. But 2011 signifies a major change in the labour market, in North America and beyond. The Boomers have dominated and their moving on will have a big impact. 

The first impact will be in sheer numbers. Projections from Statistics Canada give three scenarios for the Canadian workforce, depending on a number of different factors. The middle projection indicates that the growth of the labour force will decline significantly over the next 10 years, arriving at a no-growth level by 2016-2021. With the economy continuing to grow, the demand for skilled employees is increasing and the competition for them is heating up. How will employers handle their workforce issues? If they don’t handle them well, their companies will be in trouble. 

Where will we find the workers we need? The projections indicate that in the next 5 years or more, workforce growth will come largely from immigration. At the current rate of immigration, that will not solve the problem, especially since we do a mediocre job of integrating skilled immigrants into our economy. 

We can encourage older workers to stay in the workforce. The Province of Ontario, for example, has recently joined most of the other provinces by removing legislation that made retirement mandatory at age 65. 

We can also encourage higher skills development and employment for socio-economic groups that have traditionally been under-represented in our skilled workforce: women, aboriginals, people with disabilities and other visible minorities. 

The other very important thing we can do is focus on developing the quality of the workers that we do have and utilizing their skills, abilities, creativity and experience better than we do now.