globeandmail.com : Alberta too hot for some

globeandmail.com : Alberta too hot for some: "PATRICK BRETHOUR
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Ray English has been getting odd looks at Truck World in Toronto, where the rest of the trucking industry is wondering just why Raydan Manufacturing Inc. would flee the hottest economy in Canada.
�Why are you leaving Alberta? Are you nuts?� Mr. English said, replicating the incredulous tone of the questions being put to him at the national truck show.
His response: Labour costs in Alberta are soaring beyond reach for his truck parts company, forcing him to acquire an Ontario company to finally execute a long-hoped for expansion. �We've got to do something to get a labour force,� he said.
The rising tide of Alberta's economy has created an undertow for non-energy businesses, which have had to endure the strains of superheated growth without the massive revenues of an oil producer. �As a manufacturing company, it's been miserable,� Mr. English said.
The province's dominant energy sector is struggling with the same problem, although it is one largely of its own creation. Husky Energy Inc. president and chief executive officer John Lau warned last week of the spread of the labour shortage, saying that his Calgary-based company is now looking outside of the country to build a massive bitumen upgrader because there are not enough workers locally."

Business | Reuters.co.ca - Still more room for job growth in Canada

By Cameron French
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada has room to add more jobs without triggering serious inflation, brokerage BMO Nesbitt Burns said on Wednesday, despite a job boom in Western Canada that has pulled the national employment rate to 32-year lows and prompted one employer to scour prisons for workers.

Strong economic growth -- particularly in the country's commodity-rich West -- has pushed the rate steadily lower from a peak of nearly 12 percent in the early 1990s. The rate hit a 32-year low of 6.3 percent in March.

"I think there probably is room for the jobless rate to go lower still," Nesbitt Burns' deputy chief economist Doug Porter told Reuters.

In a research note, he argued there's still room for the jobless rate to ease without triggering inflationary pressure that could prompt the Bank of Canada to be more aggressive in the final stages of its monetary tightening campaign.


Business | Reuters.co.ca

National Job Fair - Toronto, April 19-20 2006

Come to the largest recruitment event in Ontario!
APRIL 19-20, 2006, in Toronto
Be there. Advance your career. Get a job.

For more information visit The National Job Fair Website

You are welcome to attend the 8th edition of The National Job Fair & Training Expo—the largest and the most comprehensive job and career fair in Ontario—on April 19 and 20, 2006 (from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.), at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (Exhibition Hall C). Presented in collaboration with The Toronto Sun, Jobboom and 24 Hours, our spring 2006 edition will welcome over 121 exhibitors, a participation record. The general admission is $3.50 per person (on-site registration at our General Admission Desk upon your arrival).

Attend and meet face to face with over 600 human resources professionals, recruiters and career specialists from over 121 exhibitors and access thousands of job and career opportunities from over 40 sectors in a dynamic and prospective environment. Once on-site, don't miss the chance to get a FREE assessment of your resume at our popular Resume Professional Assessment Centre.

How else will you know if there is a better opportunity out there for you if you haven't considered all your options? Companies cannot hire you if they don't know you exist! The high level of satisfaction (93%!) from candidates that visited our previous edition guarantees that you will be satisfied of your visit too!

As the premiere recruitment, career, training and education event in Ontario and a key player in the recruitment marketplace in Canada, The National Job Fair & Training Expo is the best option to consider in the job fair and career fair industry.

And don't forget: Attending means a lot more than direct access to employers; it also means learning about every aspect of the job-search process in a unique, prospective and proactive environment. Synergy, opportunity and networking are key words with us. The National Job Fair & Training Expo is your next stop to make the most out of your career! Please click Why attend? and find out why our event is incontestably YOUR target!

Educated immigrants want work (The Chronicle, Montreal, April 19, 2006)

Educated immigrants want work

BY MARC LALONDE

The Chronicle

A local community group mandated by the government to help immigrants settle in the area will hold a unique job fair tomorrow in Dollard des Ormeaux.

The Centre de Intégration Multi-services de l’Ouest de l’Ile (CIMOI) will hold a job fair with a twist; rather than having individuals come to meet companies, as is often the case at job fairs, the companies will be invited to come meet with engineering or administration candidates — immigrants with education who have found employment doors closed to them because of barriers that weren’t of their own making — such as language, culture and basically, not knowing where to begin — but that have to be hurdled nonetheless.

“It’s important for sure,” said CIMOI employment co-ordinator Nathalie Humbert. “We are the first contact for many immigrants when they come to Canada — and the biggest problem they’ve been having is trying to get their foot in the door and get that first interview. That’s what they’ll be doing (tomorrow),” she said.

That job fair, which was moved from its original location at the Pierrefonds Cultural Centre because demand was too plentiful, will bring educated immigrants and companies together to help the immigrants get their start in their field of interest.

“About half of the 36 candidates we have registered have been through the job-search workshops we hold at CIMOI, where we also did five-minute simulated interviews,” Humbert said, adding some immigrants are harder off then others because of unstable political regimes in their home countries.

“It all depends. The people that have the biggest problems are the political refugees. Often, they don’t have the necessary papers to start working in Canada because they had to leave in a big hurry. It can be a relatively simple thing to get the papers and do equivalency tests if they have all the papers, but if they don’t, that’s when it’s harder to deal with,” she said.

Chilean native Sindy Caro-Rilling, who emigrated to Canada in 2001 with her husband and four children, said she’s very much looking forward to the job fair and the opportunity to impress prospective employers with her knowledge of administration.

“It’s a very big opportunity. The employers that have been brought in know we’re all immigrants and we can show them the quality of our work. This is the opportunity I have been looking for since we moved here,” she said.

Caro-Rilling, who said life was “very hard,” on the couple when they moved to Canada because of the language barriers — “First, it’s French, and then you realize that you also have to know English as well,” — also said looking for a job in Canada was a skill they had not yet acquired.

“I obtained a professional studies diploma to go along with my education from Chile, but we discovered that it’s important to know how to look for a job as well. Plus, as an immigrant, the accent is there, so that makes it harder for people to identify with you and makes it harder to find a job,” she said.

For more information on the job fair for immigrants with backgrounds in engineering or administration, call 685-3000 ext. 223.

globeandmail.com : Catherine Swift

globeandmail.com : Catherine Swift: "Catherine Swift
Good help is hard to find
CATHERINE SWIFT
Globe and Mail Update
Here's news that comes as no great surprise to anyone trying to run a business: there is a desperate shortage of qualified labour in this country. Now, what are we going to do about it?
A study released this week by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business shows that between the beginning of 2004 and the end of last year the vacancy rate for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) increased to 3.2 per cent from 2.7 per cent. Also, the number of businesses reporting long-term staff vacancies increased by approximately 16 per cent. CFIB estimates there are 233,000 full- or part-time positions in the SME sector left vacant for at least four months.
While some regions of Canada and sectors of the economy are particularly hard hit, there is no area and no line of work that isn't touched by this shortage. This is not just a question of Alberta enjoying a boom economy right now. There's a long history of people moving to take advantage of better prospects in another part of the country, but these days we're seeing even areas with less robust economies having real trouble finding workers."

globeandmail.com : Worker shortage glows red in runup to 2010

Worker shortage glows red in runup to 2010
Construction needs reach Olympic high
CATHRYN ATKINSON

Special to The Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- Construction workers being poached from job sites by rival companies. Companies fully booked more than a year in advance for construction jobs. Worries that Olympic venues won't be completed on time, or completed at exorbitant costs.

These are just some of the signs that the shortage of skilled construction workers has hit a red-hot crisis point in British Columbia.

Employers estimate they will need 20,000 construction workers during the next three years to add to the 167,000 currently on the job across the province. Increasingly, companies are looking overseas to fill their needs.

"I've been in construction for 28 years, and I've seen the highs and lows here, but I've never seen anything like this," said Len Edmondson, vice-president of Flynn Canada Ltd., one of the country's largest building-exterior contractors.

"The work in hand is already double what it was just a couple of years ago and we're only just beginning to see the major projects for 2010, but we can't get the workers."

Large-scale projects, such as the RAV line, the Vancouver Convention Centre and Olympic venues, may have the highest profile, but make up only a fraction of the staggering $87-billion in construction work now on the books throughout the province.

From small plumbing firms to mid-sized roofers to major commercial developers -- all are under extreme pressure to complete work on time, and on budget. What they need, employers say, is more people to do the work -- and they can't be found.


globeandmail.com : Worker shortage glows red in runup to 2010

Demand for skilled workers to remain high

News Briefs: "TORONTO � Despite a drop in economic activity over the next five years the demand for highly skilled workers and trades people is expected to remain strong says the latest Scotiabank Economics Report. Prospects are particularly good for those in the technology, health care and education fields.
'Canada has enjoyed a stellar job creation record in recent years, ranking as one of the best in the industrialized world. Between 1998 and 2002, domestic employment growth averaged 2.4 per cent annually, translating into more than 300,000 net new jobs per year,' says Adrienne Warren, Senior Economist at Scotia Economics. 'The expected rate of GDP growth over the next five years would be consistent with yearly job growth in the range of 1.5 per cent, or 200,000-250,000 net new jobs per year.' "