Baby Boomer Crisis 2010!

A new study warns that employers around the world are facing a critical loss of talent over the next decade as baby boomers retire.

That loss of experienced workers, Manpower Inc. warns, could be crippling for companies.

"Our population is aging rapidly, birth rates are declining and employers need to start asking where their workers are going to come from in the future," said Lori Rogers, Manpower's Canadian vice-president of operations.

The Manpower survey of 28,000 employers across 25 countries, including 1,300 in Canada, found just over two-thirds have no plan to recruit or retain older workers. Among Canadian firms, only 17 per cent said they have recruitment plans aimed at older workers and 24 per cent have strategies to keep their most senior employees.

Keeping the workers with the most experience is a thorny problem, Rogers said, because they're also the staff financially most able to retire.

The secret, she said, is flexibility, including part-time or contract work, and more telecommuting. Spicing up that recipe, she added, is the need for continuous training and early retirement incentives for those whose skills are no longer needed.

"Savvy employers are going to find ways to keep these people, otherwise your intellectual capital is going to go out the door," Rogers said.

Naresh Agarwal, of McMaster's DeGroote business school, said the Manpower study points again to a problem that has been looming for Canadian firms for many years.

"Many sectors of our economy are facing a human resources shortage now, and it's going to get worse if the current situation isn't changed," he said. "With the population trends we have in this country, this issue is going to continue to be a problem. And older workers are becoming a very important source of additional labour."

Today, he noted, the average retirement age of a worker is between 61 and 62, compared to 65 just a few years ago.

Flexibility, he added, is a critical way of appealing to this group.

"If the only choice is between working zero hours and 40 hours, then many older workers are going to choose to quit," he said.

Research by Statistics Canada has shown a willingness by older workers to stay in the paid labour force longer.

In 2005, the agency reported 68 per cent of men aged 55 to 64 had jobs, up from 59 per cent in 1998. Among women the number was 51 per cent, compared with 41 per cent six years earlier.

Jobs companies will find most difficult to fill

in the future:

1/ Sales Representatives

2/ Skilled Manual Trades (primarily carpenters, welders and plumbers)

3/ Technicians (primarily production/operations, engineering and maintenance)

4/ Engineers

5/ Accountants

6/ Labourers

7/ Production Operators

8/ Drivers

9/ Management/Executives

10/ Machinists/Operators

April 24, 2007

Steve Arnold
The Hamilton Spectator
(Apr 24, 2007)
(Source: Manpower Talent Shortage Survey 2007, 2007 Hot Jobs

2010, a year to grow!!!

Economists are cautiously optimistic that “recession” will no longer be a prominent phrase in the Canadian vocabulary in 2010 as the economy continues to trudge out of the so-called “great recession.” Statistics Canada reported Wednesday a modest 0.2 per cent month-over-month growth in real gross domestic product in October, leading many economists to believe growth in the last quarter of 2009 could reach as much as four per cent.

The recovery is largely being fuelled by activity in the real estate sector, which rose 7.2 per cent in October in a strong market for existing home sales.

Retail and wholesale trade and some tourism-related industries also showed growth, while the finance and insurance sector slipped. Goods-producing industries grew 0.1 per cent, with gains in utilities and construction.

CIBC World Markets economist Krishen Rangasamy said the October numbers did not reach the 0.4 per cent he had predicted, largely because of slips in mining and manufacturing.

But he said the expansions in September and October still put Canada on track towards achieving a GDP growth rate of four per cent in the final quarter of the year.

Rangasamy added that output expanded in October for the fourth time in five months, suggesting that the recession is “now well in the rear-view mirror.”

Increased retail sales in the past couple months have been consistent with November gains in employment, he said, adding that increased consumer confidence will drive holiday spending higher.

“When the labour market fares well, good things tend to happen because consumers have more money in their pockets and they spend more.”

Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist with BMO Capital Markets, says four per cent growth for the fourth quarter of 2009 might be too optimistic. He predicted growth would be closer to three per cent, after receiving less than impressive early results from November.

Porter added that following modest growth in the third quarter, three per cent growth in fourth quarter would be enough to declare the recession officially over.

“That would pretty much do it, if you end up with two full quarters of growth, that pretty much ends it,” he said.

BMO forecasts that Canada’s economy will post GDP growth of 2.6 per cent next year, which hovers close to growth in an average year as well as consensus for 2010 growth in the banking industry.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Canada’s forecast growth rate of three per cent is at the higher end of that spectrum.

If growth expands at the median rate economists are predicting, it would essentially reverse the 2.5 per cent decline seen this year.

In 2009, Canada saw the second worst economic decline it has faced in the past 50 years, with only 1982’s recession faring worse, Porter said.

Millan Mulraine, an economic strategist at TD Securities said that although the economic recovery is fragile, Canada is already out of recession mode.

He said the economy will fare much better in 2010 than in 2009 and expects at least a three per cent year over year growth for 2010.

“That would suggest that not only are we away from the recession but we’ve retraced some of the lost ground that the Canadian economy experienced during the recession.”

Even with a three per cent gain, economic growth would still be below 2007 levels, Mulraine said. However, that would at least leave the economy close to where it was before, as if recession hadn’t happened.

But with thousands of people still out of work and an unemployment rate of 8.5 per cent, it’s difficult to imagine the recession never happened.

Despite the growth, the Bank of Montreal is predicting the jobless rate will still average 10 per cent in the United States and 8.5 per cent in Canada next year.

But Mulraine said that over the next few months, there will be a significant pickup in the labour market and Canada could see close to a quarter of a million jobs added by the end of next year.

“That will take us close to the pace of job losses — we’ve lost about 300,000 jobs so far — and (we) will have retraced most of that by the end of next year.”

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Tuesday he is optimistic the Canadian economy has stabilized and will experience moderate growth next year.

Flaherty said he is seeing enough evidence that the economy has weathered the recession that he is sticking with his plan to end the $46.6-billion stimulus program as planned in the spring of 2011.

Courtesy of Stats Can Thursday Dec 24 2009