Statistics Canada warns that Canada’s rapidly aging workforce is one of the factors behind labor shortages in some industries.
A record number of Canadians will retire, the country’s statistics agency said, warning of a looming jobs crisis linked to the aging of the national workforce.
Canada Statistics saying Wednesday that the working-age population, ages 15-64, “has never been higher,” while more than 1 in 5 workers in Canada (21.8 percent) were approaching mandatory retirement age or 65 year proposal.
“This is an all-time high in Canadian census history and one of the factors behind the labor shortages facing some industries across the country,” the agency said.
He cited the so-called baby boom generation, people born between 1946 and 1965, who are leaving the workforce as one of the factors accelerating the aging of the population.
“There are challenges associated with an aging workforce, including knowledge transfer, retention of experienced employees and workforce turnover,” he said.
Canada’s aging population has been a concern for several years.
In 2020, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying would attract more than 1.2 million new immigrants over three years to help fill gaps in the job market and stimulate the country’s economy amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said at the time that Canada needed more workers “and immigration is the way to get there.”
But Statistics Canada said Wednesday that “immigration has a rejuvenating effect on the Canadian population, but this effect is not enough to stop the aging process of the population.”
At the end of 2021, the agency said in a separate report that there were nearly a million job vacancies across Canada, more than double the number from the previous year. Some of the hardest jobs to fill included restaurant staff, construction workers, nurses, and social workers.
Statistics Canada said that seven million people are now 65 or older, which represents about 19 per cent of the total population of 37 million, while the number of people aged 85 or older could triple by 2046.
The demographic change, he said, was linked to low fertility, an increase in life expectancy and the fact that the so-called baby boomer generation started turning 65 in 2011.