Stephen Bauld is tickled that the Ontario government has embarked on a $60-billion program to renew the province's aging infrastructure of roads, bridges and sewers in the next decade. He's just not sure how it's going to get done.
There's already a shortage of skilled workers in the construction industry and Mr. Bauld knows it's going to get worse - a lot worse - as 50,000 or more workers retire in the next few years with no prospect that a younger generation will be slipping into their steel-toed boots.
"You can only build so much if you don't have the people," said the vice-president of the Ontario General Contractors Association.
You can only build so many cars, pluck so many chickens and operate so many power stations if you don't have the people. And that's exactly the problem that Ontario is confronting.
The statistics are nothing short of alarming. Although labour supply exceeds demand in Ontario (and layoffs in the manufacturing sector are grabbing the headlines) the situation is expected to reverse itself by 2014. According to the Conference Board of Canada, the province could face a shortfall of 190,000 workers by 2020 and 564,000 by 2030.
It will be a gold mine for those still working as employers engage in a war for talent, but the shortage of workers, particularly those with skills, will play havoc with every sector of the economy.
A shortage of millwrights, refrigeration technicians and electricians is already bedevilling the $33-billion food-processing industry. Jane Graham, executive director of the Alliance of Ontario Food Processors, said the skilled labour shortage is already causing companies to miss new business opportunities. Ontario is unlikely to run short of food and beverages but, she said, "if we don't do anything about the skills shortage, the food won't come from here."
At the very least, the looming skills shortage threatens to lead to slower economic growth and curtail the ability of governments to finance the cost of providing health care to the cohort of people over 65 years, whose numbers will nearly double by 2030. In other words, we boomers will be sitting in our nursing homes but there may not be anybody there to care for us.
Ontario businesses are waking up to the chilling reality that awaits them if they don't do anything. An early indication of their concern is a gathering in Toronto today of 300 representatives from business, labour, education and government to hash over the issue.
The Ontario government says the skills-shortage issue will be central in the budget expected later this month. "The skill sets of our people must be matched to the new economy," Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said yesterday.
Not much can be done about the post-boomer fertility rate, but the government needs to bump up the proportion of workers with skills so that businesses can confidently invest in automated processes that will allow them to shrink their work forces. It needs to target groups that are under-represented in the postsecondary system - immigrant women, the disabled and aboriginals - to get them to the point where they can contribute fully to the labour force.
It will be expensive. Community colleges will need money to upgrade their facilities and new programs will be needed to improve the literacy and numeracy capability of these would-be workers. But the stark demographic figures can't be avoided for much longer.
As Linda Franklin, president of Colleges Ontario, said: "If we don't get started now, when we have time, a decade from now it's going to be too late."
