12-04-13
According to a recent labor market study by Engineers Canada, the country’s rapid growth in the mining, energy, and transportation sectors, coupled by the anticipated retirement of approximately 95,000 Canadian engineers in the next 7 years, has resulted in a worrisome shortage of experienced engineering talent. Employers in the industrial and manufacturing sectors across the country will face a considerable supply shortage of qualified engineers (with more than five years of experience) for the majority of the next decade.
According to Engineers Canada, the current imbalance between supply and demand of experienced engineers will most likely become more serious in the near future; the Canadian labour market has not successfully reached a balance between retiring engineers and incoming graduates from ether Canada or abroad. “Chronic labour shortages will continue across the scenario given the current levels of immigration and post secondary enrolments,” the market analysis reads.
This intense demand for national and international skilled labour can be presented as an opportunity to potential immigrants. According to the report, experienced and specialized engineers who were internationally trained have highly favourable job prospects in the Canadian labour market. The Current need to replace retiring experienced engineers far exceeds the number of new jobs created by economic growth. This contributes to a skills shortage that is most acute for specialized engineers with over ten years of experience than for recent graduates in the field.
This positive assessment seems to be reinforced by the country’s longstanding high immigration rates. Canada has received a large number of internationally trained engineers over the past decade, and if current levels of immigration are sustained for the next 7 years, the country would have opened its doors to a further 80,000 engineers by the year 2020.
FWCanada is a Montreal-based law firm that provides professional legal service on Canadian immigration. To find out more about tips and updates on Canadian immigration, like FWCanada on Facebook, and follow the firm on Twitter.
