As Quebec's worker shortage worsens, employers plead with leaders to welcome more immigrants
CBC
At a packaging plant in a Montreal suburb, workers from 35 countries work the line, nailing and assembling crates for shipment.
The company, Creopack, has about 100 employees — 60 per cent of whom were born in countries other than Canada. The company is actively seeking more.
Efforts to hire locally have been unsuccessful.
"It can take six months to find one person," said Creopack's vice-president, Jean-Sébastien Comtois. The company paid tens of thousands of dollars and went through nearly three years of red tape to attract temporary foreign workers, only to hire just 12, six of whom have not yet arrived.
Comtois says the worker shortage is hampering his business development prospects, and he's calling on Quebec's political parties to do whatever is necessary to attract more people to the workforce.
His experience is anything but isolated, says Véronique Proulx, president and CEO of the Quebec Manufacturers and Exporters Association. Proulx estimates manufacturers in the province have lost $18 billion over the last two years due to the labour shortage.
"It's really slowing down their capacity to grow. It's affecting their competitiveness. A lot of manufacturers are refusing orders or letting go customers because they just can't find the workers they need," she said.
And with an aging population, a booming economy and a declining birth rate, the worker shortage is set to worsen, according to the Conseil du patronat, Quebec's largest employers' group.
The group's president, Karl Blackburn, said that trend will leave 1.4 million jobs to fill between now and 2030.
Proulx and Blackburn are calling on Quebec's political parties to increase the number of immigrants.
None of the parties are promising an increase in immigration as big as what Blackburn proposes, from a maximum of 50,000 under the CAQ to 80,000 annually.
The Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) and Québec Solidaire come closest to the Conseil du patronat's target, with PLQ Leader Dominique Anglade promising to increase the number of immigrants to 70,000 per year.
Québec Solidaire says the province could welcome that many or more: between 60,000 and 80,000. The Parti Québécois calls for cutting back the number of immigrants.
The Coalition Avenir Québec — the party most likely to form the next government, led by incumbent premier François Legault — says Quebec cannot accommodate more immigrants than it is accepting now, that is, 50,000 per year. The Conservative Party of Quebec says it would also keep immigration levels about the same.
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