Balancing the Strains of Time

Job Market

According to Statistics Canada projections, by 2030, 1 in 4 Canadians will be of age 65 or over–higher than the percentage of seniors in Florida. In another study, about 1 out of every 5 workers in Canada was close to retirement in 2007. This means that every year approximately 3.6 million people who are leaving the workforce will have to be replaced.

[pullquote]Within 10 to 20 years there will be systemic labour shortages in Canada.[/pullquote]

This number will grow every year. If current government policies and general trends continue, chances are that very soon there will be more workers retiring and less young graduates who can fill their places because of the decline in birth rates.

In an interview with the Arbitrage, Tony Fang, Associate Professor of Human Resources Management at York University, says, “Within 10 to 20 years there will be systemic labour shortages in Canada. In the short term, graduates will feel the pain of the recession but in the long run there will be dramatic changes in the labour market. Organizations and labour force participants that can capture these trends are most likely to succeed.”

If population aging continues as predicted, the picture will likely be much different than what it is now. Students will graduate from university in the subject they love most, as jobs will be available in most industries. They will get an entry-level job in the company of their dreams, and within five years they will become one of the company’s most senior and skilled employees. Next they will be managing several of the company’s large projects with several people working under them. To add to this, most of their friends and peers will be in a similar position. Within 10 to 15 years this could be the new reality of the job market.

However, besides population aging it seems there will be other factors affecting the labour market.

“Certain factors will slow down labour force shortages,” says Fang. “Those factors include economic slowdowns (recessions), productivity growth with the advancement of technology (automation of different jobs which will substitute for labour) [and also] the outsourcing of jobs to low cost countries such as China and India.”

Nevertheless, Fang thinks that labour shortages will occur. “Based on several studies done in the US,” says Fang, “[they] will be short of 10 million workers in about 10 years. But the shortage is not just about numbers but more about a shortage of skills or skilled people who are in large demand.”

“In the past you could get a high paying job in manufacturing, retail [or] trades. But [now] this is too good to be true. Now it’s harder to get a [good] job with a high school education because these types of jobs have moved to China or India. And well-paying union jobs are being lost in big numbers.”

So even though many boomers who are retiring spent their entire careers in industries such as the trades, retail and manufacturing, there will be fewer jobs in these areas in the future, whereas jobs in the service industry will increase. Ultimately those with more education and a higher level of skills are more likely to succeed in the labour market of tomorrow.

There will also be more jobs in industries that are going to grow due to an older population. These include industries like healthcare and financial planning. As more boomers start to enter their sixties or seventies, they will require more medical assistance and drugs, which means more jobs in places such as hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. Doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and pharmacists will all have plenty of work.

Careers in the financial industry will also be growing. With the number of people entering retirement on the rise, these people will turn to financial advisors to manage their retirement savings and other personal investments. Many boomers might want to withdraw their money and put it into more short-term low-risk investments that are more in line with their personal objectives.

Choosing Your Path

Radical changes are coming to Canada’s labour market. So knowing all this, what education and career path should students pursue today? To answer this question, the Arbitrage interviewed Monica Belcourt, the Director of the School of Human Resource Management, and a Professor of Human Resources Management at York University. Her other accomplishments at York include being the founder of the largest HRM program in Canada, and creating Canada’s first Bachelor of Human Resources Management degree.

“I would advise students to choose careers the way people have been doing for generations,” says Belcourt. “What do they like to do? What professions really appeal to them? What are their strong skills (e.g. Math, English)? If they won a million dollars, what education routes would they choose?”

These are the sorts of questions that students need to be asking themselves. “If they have difficulty answering these questions, then I would advise them to book an appointment with a vocational counsellor,” says Belcourt. “Every university has psychologists in the career centre who can help answer these questions. Then, once a career choice has been identified, go to the Stats Canada web site, and discover what are the employment trends for that job.”

She further explains that “those entering the workforce today can expect to work for about five or more decades, so it is impossible to predict employment trends for that period (and even harder to advise which degree to choose), so that is why I recommend starting a career path by choosing jobs/professions that you LIKE to do, rather than what you or experts think will be jobs with high employment rates.”

Another option that few people think about is entrepreneurship. As the population of older people increases, there is a lot of potential for doing business in areas such as medical and healthcare equipment. “If you have parents or grandparents who have special care or might need it now,” says Michael Reitz, a division president of Genesis ElderCare Centers, “ask yourself what service or product you could offer that would make life at home better for them.”