British Columbia is known for its natural beauty, with a resource-dominated economy. It has sufficient white collars, but it may fall short of skilled workers in the coming years.
A recent report of the British Columbia government noted a labor shortage over the next 10 years in the province, saying that 71,280 job vacancies were expected by 2019.
According to the British Columbia Labor Market Outlook report, the labor shortage in the wine-producing province is affecting jobs requiring skilled workers as more workers retired.
About half of the vacancies are expected to be new jobs, while the professions which will be most in demand are carpenters, chefs, cooks and construction workers.
With Canadian universities churning out an increasing number of white-collar graduates each year, many of them are struggling to find jobs in their chosen profession.
In an interview with Xinhua, Canadian Human Resources and Skills Development Minister Diane Finley said the shortage of skilled labor is so serious that a ribbon-cutting ceremony she was scheduled to attend at a new vocational school was canceled -- due to lack of working staff for the ceremony.
In the face of such strong demand for skilled labor, Finley encouraged more people to consider a well-paying career in professions that are likely to always have a shortage.
Finley said a lot of university students get pushed into white collar jobs while skilled trade jobs actually suit a lot of people.
“Not everybody is cut out for the white-collar trade. These are honorable jobs, and they pay well, and they are in demand right across the country. People that go into them are often much happier,” she said.
Finley said Canadian vocational schools are open to both domestic and overseas students and provide a host of incentives for people considering entering the trades.
Those coming to Canada on an international student visa can stay and work in Canada normally for two to three years after they complete a program so that they can accumulate work experience.
“They (vocational schools) offer a really good grounding in that, and they are a gateway into apprenticeships,” she said.
“Apprenticeships are great because they lead the students into careers that are very stable, that are in very high demand in Canada right now and that provide a good honest living. We have shortages right across the country in many of these skilled trades, and we’re trying to encourage people to get into them,” she said.
At Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, a city in the Greater Vancouver area, about eight percent of the school’s 1,500 student population are from overseas, mostly from the Chinese mainland.
With its state-of-the-art facility, the school offers a range of apprenticeship programs in such areas as welding, carpentry, construction, automotive service, millwright, plumbing and farrier training, among others.
Typically, the training is divided into several stages. In the first year, students may have about half a year to learn the basics of their desired profession. They will then work in the field. In the following years, the students return to class for hands-on schooling and study, followed by more work in the field.
Over a period of four to five years, said Wayne Tebb, Kwantlen’s dean of faculty of trades and technology, a student will put in as much effort as the average person getting a bachelor’s degree at the university.
At the end of four or five years, vocational students are fully certified in their trade, being able to work anywhere in Canada and many foreign countries and having internationally recognized skills, he said.
“We’re getting people with engineering skills, business degrees. They are learning a different set of skills, a different way of learning and a different way of using their knowledge to get results and create value for themselves and society,” Tebb said.
“There are an awful lot of parents who recognize that their sons and daughters went to university, but they don’t have a lot of skills the industry wants. So we do see a fair number of students who already have university degrees coming here to learn a concrete skill where they can get a job and make a good pay check. People in the trades make very good money,” he said.
For Chinese students interested in coming to Canada and studying for a trade at Kwantlen, Tebb said they had to be 19 years old and have Grade 12 English and mathematics as a prerequisite. First-year students could enter the introductory level, but there would have to be some type of employment connection for the years beyond that.
“We would have to construct a program for them that would combine both schooling and work for approximately four years. That’s quite doable,” he said.
“Certainly the growth of the automotive sector in China is going to mean there’s going to be a huge need for people in that area. I believe in China there is an increasing use of wood as a building material. That might create a demand for some of the construction trades,” he said.
Tebb said Kwantlen’s faculty of trades and technology currently has 45 full-time instructors and others from the trades, and most of them are tradesman themselves.
He added the university is open to partnerships with Chinese schools. Moreover, he said, people’s mindset about trades must change -- contrary to popular belief, they are honorable professions that are in demand and offer lifelong employment.
“The truth is an awful lot of the learning in the trades is coordinating the hand and the mind, not just the mind and the mouth. The main thing is people have to see the work as being relevant, and the trades are a very honorable tradition in old Europe. It pre-dates most of our university professionals in Europe,” Tebb said.
“But in North America, and in most countries with emerging economies, trades tend not to have quite the same status. But that will change,” Tebb predicted.
- Xinhua