Aging population to impact economy: BoC

By Claire Sibonney

TORONTO – The aging of Canada’s population will put upward pressure on wages as the pool of available workers shrinks, and global aging might over time lead to lower interest rates, Bank of Canada Deputy Governor Jean Boivin said on Wednesday.

Aging will also affect the potential of the economy, meaning the level of activity at which it can operate without inflationary pressures, and this is something the Bank of Canada needs to assess, he said.

The high level of household debt in the country makes it even more crucial that individuals adjust their savings behaviour and plan over a longer horizon, he said in a speech in Toronto.

“As our society ages, we can either accept a lower standard of living or we can try to be proactive and adjust … The stakes are high and we cannot afford to ignore them,” Mr. Boivin said.

“There is no free lunch in that context ; something will have to give and someone will have to pick up the tab, so the least we can do is accept this fact and ensure that the bill remains small and that the burden is shared fairly.”

The mechanism for upward pressure on wages would be that with relatively fewer people left in the work force, employers will compete to attract talent.

Taken in isolation, he said, the scarcity of labour relative to capital could be expected to lead to higher wages and lower returns on capital in advanced economies, and eventually to persistently lower global interest rates.

Improved productivity, if any, would offset the downward pressure on rates.

But Canada’s tepid growth of productivity and potential output has preoccupied the central bank. Mr. Boivin said the latest estimate was for Canada’s potential output to grow by 2.2% in 2014, and without the decline in working age population it would be 0.2 percentage points higher.

“Aging is projected to continue to subtract from potential output growth until the end of the current decade,” he said.

He said Canada faced three options to avoid drastic declines in living standards or shifting too much burden on the next generations: more work, greater productivity and higher savings.

Without endorsing last week’s federal budget, he said policy steps could foster the needed adjustments and this was the objective of some of the measures in the budget.

The budget raised to 67 from 65 the age of eligibility for payments to seniors under its Old Age Security program, and hiked the age of retirement to 65 from 60 for new federal employees, starting next year.

Mr. Boivin also highlighted the important contribution of immigration to dealing with the aging problem. The budget announced plans to eliminate a backlog of stale applications by foreign skilled workers so that immigrants whose skills are in greater current demand can enter Canada faster.

He said a key challenge was to remove the barriers that keep educated and skilled immigrants from working in their fields.

© Thomson Reuters 2012

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Scotiabank Turns to Immigrants to Boost Canadian Banking

Bank of Nova Scotia Building, now incorporated into the Scotia Plaza office complex, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada’s third- largest bank, plans to increase the share of banking services it offers for newcomers to the country, said Anatol von Hahn, the lender’s group head of domestic banking.

“Emigrating India, China or Mexico, we try to get you before you arrive to get you to open some of your banking services,” von Hahn said yesterday during an interview in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where the Toronto-based bank is holding its annual meeting.

By gaining a larger share of immigrants, which von Hahn said enter Canada at a rate about 250,000 per year, Scotiabank can increase its “share of wallet” for services such as mortgages and credit cards. Von Hahn estimates the bank has a 17 percent to 18 percent share of newcomers to Canada, with the biggest “opportunity” to expand being with skilled workers who come to Canada for a short period.

“The bigger objective is, we need to get more customers through the front door so that we can provide them with our services,” said von Hahn, who has been with Scotiabank since 1984. “That’s of course a very hard thing to do in a mature market when most of your customers are already banked, and it’s difficult to switch them.”

Domestic banking accounted for 32 percent of the lender’s C$5.3 billion ($5.35 billion) in record net income last year, and von Hahn’s unit was the biggest contributor to profit. The lender uses its moniker of being “Canada’s most international bank,” with operations in more than 50 countries, as a starting point to seek out new clients before they move to Canada.

Scotiabank often receives referrals from immigration consultants in the countries it does business in for clients moving to Canada. The bank also has a three-person branch inside Mexico’s Canadian embassy, where newcomers to Canada often visit and explore banking relationships before they leave the country, von Hahn said.

In addition, Scotiabank plans to bolster domestic banking profit by expanding auto lending and small banking businesses, von Hahn said.

“There’s a lot more in the small business segment where we can continue to grow,” said von Hahn, who has worked for the bank in Chile, Argentina and Mexico. “I think that’s an area you’ll continue to see us grow in.”

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New report brings small business to the immigration conversation

By Maytree Foundation

Published: Tuesday, Apr. 3, 2012 - 8:09 am

TORONTO, April 3, 2012 -- /PRNewswire/ - A new report released by ALLIES highlights new ways to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to hire skilled immigrants.

The report notes that SMEs face skills and labour shortages, and compete with larger businesses for skilled talent. However, due to a lack of HR personnel and resources, SMEs are underutilizing the skills and talents of immigrants in the workforce.

To address this, the report recommends:

• Programs and services to SMEs should be marketed and delivered through individuals and organizations that SMEs trust, such as accountants, industry and professional associations, and peers;
• That government and others provide more services to SMEs that facilitate workplace integration - all while making sure that their interactions with small business are simple, straightforward and fast; and
• A public awareness and media campaign with national and local mainstream media to promote the benefits of hiring skilled immigrants in Canada.

"The potential impact of engaging SMEs in immigrant employment strategies can have significant positive outcomes for local labour markets across different sectors and regions," says Ratna Omidvar, president of Maytree. "In the private sector alone, SMEs employ 6.7 million Canadians. Effectively engaging SMEs will an enormous effect on SMEs, skilled immigrants, and on the Canadian economy."

This report highlights findings of a year-long study of new, innovative and promising initiatives that can help connect SMEs with the skilled immigrant labour pool. The findings draw on the input of nearly 300 SMEs from five Canadian cities, individual interviews, and an online survey conducted by the Conference Board of Canada. Earlier findings resulting from a review of policies and programs aimed at SMEs, and interviews with more than 50 stakeholders Canada-wide, were summarized in an interim report published in October 2011.

To download the report, visit the ALLIES website at http://alliescanada.ca/sme.

Version française.

Supportive quotes:

"Canada's future success depends on the ability of SMEs to take advantage of global opportunities. We know that the underemployment of highly skilled immigrants is costing the Canadian economy. Governments and communities can use some of these strategies to improve SMEs' ability to access highly skilled immigrant employees."        -     Anne Golden, President & Chief Executive Officer, Conference Board of Canada

"This report shines a light on the significance of SMEs on our economy, and the challenges they can face in recruiting top talent. Ontario's CGAs understand the needs of the SME sector and we are pleased that this research illustrates how accounting professionals can help SMEs thrive in an ever-increasingly competitive economy."        -     Doug Brooks, FCGA, CEO, Certified General Accountants of Ontario

"Canada is facing a skills crisis, and as the labour market tightens, access to skilled foreign-trained workers will be essential to the success of Canadian SMEs."        -     Honourable Perrin Beatty, President & Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chamber of Commerce

ALLIES (Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies) supports local efforts in Canadian cities to successfully adapt and implement programs that further the suitable employment of skilled immigrants. The project is jointly funded by Maytree and The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. http://www.alliescanada.ca.

Global Talent for SMEs is funded in part by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

SOURCE Maytree Foundation

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/03/4387419/new-report-brings-small-business.html#storylink=cpy

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New approach proposed for immigrant recruiting

Toronto: TD Canada Trust Tower (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When George Kelk Corp. is looking to recruit new employees, it sets its sights on Canada’s immigrant community first.

“Eighty per cent of our staff of 160 was born outside of Canada,” said Peter Kelk, president of the Toronto company, which makes instruments for mining and metal forming. “Since we export 98 per cent of our production, their understanding of how business is done in their home areas helps us enormously.”

The approach stands in stark contrast to the immigrant hiring practices of most small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), according to a report released by Maytree on Tuesday.

Canada annually receives about 250,000 immigrants – many of whom have advanced degrees and skills that are in demand – but only a small fraction of them manage to land jobs at SMBs, which represent 64 per cent of new private-sector positions. The issue is two-fold, the report concludes: Smaller employers are often unaware of the skills immigrants bring to the table or how to reach out to them, while newcomers tend to focus their job hunts on well-known corporations.

“This represents a huge opportunity,” said Ratna Omidvar, president of study sponsor Maytree, a non-profit foundation that develops programs to integrate immigrants into the work force. The consultations for Global Talent for SMEs: Building Bridges and Making Connections, conducted by a division of Maytree, included 300 small-business owners in five focus groups across Canada, and individual interviews with entrepreneurs.

“They said they’re just as open to hiring foreign trained talent as anyone else. Their problem is they don’t have the connections to find immigrants with the skills they need,” Ms. Omidvar said. “They tend to hire just in time: it’s ‘who do you know and who’s in front of me?’”

The researchers also found that immigrant advocate groups have tended to focus only on big employers “because they are the ones who can come to the table during discussions and have the capacity in their HR departments to recruit and vet immigrant candidates,” Ms. Omidvar added.

A primary recommendation of the report is for a single point of SMB access to recruiting and hiring support for immigrants.

Small-scale programs of this nature already exist locally. Pat d'Entremont, partner with technology services company Nicom IT Solutions, said his 85-employee company has recently found immigrants for hard-to-fill positions through the Greater Halifax Partnership’s Connector Program, which helps immigrants expand their personal networks to connect with business people. The Nova Scotia government has also set up programs to encourage immigrant hiring, Mr. D’Entremont pointed out, including a job board for skilled immigrants and – in some cases – financial assistance.

The focus groups agreed SMBs would do better if there was an online data base of screened immigrant candidates. “They said they need something that is sector-wide and they would benefit from an HR advisory or consulting site that they could use when they’re looking for talent,” Ms. Omidvar said.

Lionel Carriere, president of mobile software company XEA Services in Edmonton, said he’d have immediate use for such a data base. “We’re a growing company facing challenges in finding people with the skills we need. But as a small enterprise, we don’t have access to tools and resources that would allow us to recruit foreign trained workers. Our only (hiring) option is for them to find us.”

In consultations with Maytree, Mr. Carriere recommended the agency that runs the data base also provide pre-screening of equivalency of international experience and reference checks, as well as assistance in supporting any new employee’s adaptation to Canadian culture.

Another recommendation in the report is for governments to provide wage and orientation subsidies as incentives for small employers, which can’t offer compensation at the same level as larger employers. These might include bonuses payable when an SMB hires an eligible skilled immigrant for at least 12 months, or a tax credit similar to the federal subsidy on Employment Insurance payments for small business hiring that was extended in the recent federal budget.

“Given the austere times, financial assistance programs, like first-job subsidies, are probably not going to be as likely to be available as an option, but we should keep it on the books for better times,” Ms. Omidvar conceded.

Most immediately, the report recommended targeting SMBs with information campaigns. “We want to use trusted intermediaries – services and institutions that SMEs use – to promote the programs and the advantages of tapping into the pool of skilled immigrants,” Ms. Omidvar said.

Most specifically, “the consultations found employers trust their accountants. We want to work with accounting organizations to provide information about services that are available and explain the advantages of hiring talented immigrants, particularly for a company that wants to develop a global market,” Ms. Omidvar said.

Maytree plans to do a pilot program with these ideas later this year, she said. They will look for partners in local communities, including governments, advocacy groups and colleges and universities, as well as leading employers.

“We don’t want to tell them what to do. Local employers know their particular sector and the needs of local employers. We want more SMEs to come out and tell us what will work.”

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Ottawa’s insistence on high immigration levels during downturns questioned in report

icholas KeungImmigration Reporter

A new report on immigration outcomes questions Ottawa’s insistence on maintaining Canada’s high immigration levels despite a recession.

Bringing in a huge number of immigrants during an economic downturn could create an underclass of new Canadians caught up in adversity, said the study by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

“During recessions, economic outcomes deteriorate more among recent immigrants than among the Canadian-born,” said the report, “Making it in Canada: Immigration Outcomes and Policies,” to be released Wednesday.

“It also helps prevent longer-run economic ‘scarring’ that can occur when new labour market entrants are unable to obtain jobs or are unable to practice their skills over a long period.”

In 2010, Canada accepted 280,636 permanent residents, the highest level in over 50 years.

The paper also raised concerns over Ottawa’s drastic shift to gear immigrant selection more toward short-term, narrowly defined labour market needs, because demand for specific occupations can change quickly with the business cycle.

For instance, during the IT boom in 1990s, Canada launched a special program to target newcomers with backgrounds in computer science and engineering. The group was the hardest hit in the 2000 IT bust.

While Ottawa’s recent policy changes — tightening requirements, prioritizing applications with arranged employments and expanding the temporary foreign workers program — can address skills shortages in the short term, it runs the risk of swinging too far off the balance, the report said.

“We are going in the right direction, but we may be moving a bit too far,” said McMaster University economics professor Arthur Sweetman, who co-wrote the report with Garnett Picot, former director-general of research at Statistics Canada.

“It’s not bad to be a bit short-term, but how short-term do you want it to be?” asked Sweetman.

It is too early to assess the impact of the recent changes, but Sweetman said Canada needs to balance immigrants’ short-term economic outcomes with their long-term success, reflected partially in the second-generation’s performance.

The report said children of immigrants are doing as well as, or better than, those of Canadian-born parents. However, second-generation members of a visible-minority group, on average, have higher unemployment rates and lower earnings than their white third-plus-generation counterparts.

University graduation rates among children of immigrants from:

Africa: 50.1%

Caribbean: 27.8%

Latin America: 23.3%

China: 62.4%

Philippines: 33%

India: 50.1%

West Asia, Middle East: 41.1%

Other Asia: 44.8%

United States: 35.1%

United Kingdom: 33.3%

Germany: 33%

Italy: 31.4%

Portugal: 17.4%

Netherlands: 30%

Other northern and Western Europe: 36.8%

Eastern Europe: 41.1%

Other Europe: 34.5%

Children of Canadian-born parents: 23.8%

Source: Making It in Canada: Immigration Outcomes and Policies

List of Occupations for the Facilitated Labour Market Opinion Assessment Process in Quebec

The following is the list of 44 occupations that are part of Quebec's Facilitated Labour Market Opinion Assessment Process.

Local recruitment efforts do not need to be performed by employers as part of their applications to hire temporary foreign workers for any of the following occupations.

• 0112 Human Resources Managers
• 0611 Sales, Marketing and Advertising Managers
• 0621 Retail Trade Managers
• 1111 Financial Auditors and Accountants
• 1221 Administrative Officers
• 1222 Executive Assistants
• 1243 Medical Secretaries
• 2131 Civil Engineers
• 2146 Aerospace Engineers
• 2171 Information Systems Analysts and Consultants
• 2173 Software Engineers and Designers
• 2174 Computer Programmers and Interactive Media Developers
• 2231 Civil Engineering Technologists and Technicians
• 2232 Mechanical Engineering Technologists and Technicians
• 2241 Electrical and Electronics Engineering Technologists and Technicians
• 2253 Drafting Technologists and Technicians
• 2282 User Support Technicians
• 2283 Systems Testing Technicians
• 3111 Specialist Physicians
• 3112 General Practitioners and Family Physicians
• 3113 Dentists
• 3114 Veterinarians

• 3131 Pharmacists
• 3141 Audiologists and Speech-Language Pathologists
• 3142 Physiotherapists
• 3143 Occupational Therapists
• 3152 Registered Nurses
• 3211 Medical Laboratory Technologists and Pathologists' Assistants
• 3214 Respiratory Therapists, Clinical Perfusionists and Cardiopulmonary Technologists
• 3215 Medical Radiation Technologists
• 3222 Dental Hygienists and Dental Therapists
• 3233 Licensed Practical Nurses
• 4131 College and Other Vocational Instructors
• 4141 Secondary School Teachers
• 4152 Social Workers
• 4212 Community and Social Service Workers
• 5125 Translators, Terminologists and Interpreters
• 6211 Retail Trade Supervisors
• 6221 Technical Sales Specialists – Wholesale Trade
• 7231 Machinists and Machining and Tooling Inspectors
• 7311 Construction Millwrights and Industrial Mechanics (Except Textile)
• 7312 Heavy-Duty Equipment Mechanics
• 7321 Automotive Service Technicians, Truck and Bus Mechanics and Mechanical Repairers
• 7333 Electrical Mechanics

Federal budget 2012: Skilled immigrants urge investments into talents already in Canada

Nicholas KeungImmigration Reporter

Source: The Star

Every evening after dinner, Naseem Ahmed Pasha would don his dress pants and dress shirt, and say goodbye to his three boys, telling them he was leaving for work in hospital.

By the time Pasha, a family doctor from India, got to his worksite, he would change into his uniform, the uniform of a security guard, for his 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at a Toronto condominium – for $8.50 an hour.

Before Pasha arrived Canada in 2006 under the skilled immigrant program, he was confident he would soon be able to use his skills and contribute to this country in a meaningful way.

After all, he has a medical degree from India’s University of Mysore and practiced medicines first in India and then in Saudi Arabia for 15 years. In his two years as a security guard here, he studied and passed all the qualifying exams and had his credentials certified.

Yet today, instead of treating patients and curing diseases, Pasha is sweeping floors and lifting heavy merchandise at a Toronto home improvement hardware store on survival wages.

“It’s a very tough pill to swallow,” said the 44-year-old, choking back tears. “I wasn’t prepared for this kind of jobs. But coming here, you have to survive and put bread on the table.

“I didn’t tell my kids because I come from a culture where being a doctor is an honourable and noble profession. Now my status has dropped, doing blue-collar jobs. It would have a bad impact on my kids.”

There are many highly educated and skilled immigrants like Pasha who have their skills wasted and look for Ottawa’s investment in the talents already here.

Of all the professions, physicians are probably the most highly regarded but also among the internationally-trained immigrants most likely to fail to get back into their field of training. (A Statistics Canada study found that 60 per cent of new immigrants failed to work in the same field.)

According to the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, a self-advocacy group, there are more than 7,500 immigrant doctors in Ontario alone, about 2,000, like Pasha, having passed the exams but unable to secure a residency spot, a prerequisite.

This week, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney proposed a new policy requiring applicants wanting to immigrate as federal skilled workers to have their foreign credentials assessed and verified before their arrival in Canada.

While the change is welcomed as it would give future migrants a better understanding of how their credentials are measured against Canadian standards and hopefully help them hit the ground running quicker, many like Pasha also fear those who are already here would be forgotten.

Although the Conservative government has tripled its immigrant settlement budget since 2006, it has reduced the investment in newcomers’ programs such as language training and employment services since 2010. Ontario alone has lost almost $75 million settlement funding. Further cuts are expected.

To address the issue of the waste of immigrant skills, Ottawa established the Foreign Credentials Referral Office in 2006 to provide better licensing information to newcomers and launched orientation sessions for approved immigrants before arrival. The program is available in 25 countries.

So far, the credentials referral office has developed the Pan-Canada assessment and recognition tools for eight occupations and physicians is one of the six target professions in 2012.

“Our government is building an immigration system that is focused on economic growth and ensuring that all Canadians, including immigrants, are able to contribute to their maximum capacity,” said Kenney.

In 2010, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario issued 3,708 postgraduate training certificates to physicians in residency training and practice certificates to others, including 636 international medical graduates.

However, Mitra Arjang of the Association of International Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario said those international graduates are mostly made up of Canadian-born graduates from medical schools overseas.

“Residency program directors prefer residents to be young, to be familiar with the Canadian culture as much as possible. Immigrant doctors are real doctors and not just graduates with no experience. They are just too qualified,” said Arjang, adding that only a small number of those selected for residency are actual immigrant doctors.

It should be viewed as a health care issue when qualified physicians are prevented from practice as patients are made to wait for medical procedures and live without a family doctor, said Arjang.

The real solution, she added, is to offer transitional licenses for international trained physicians to work in a supervised environment to prove their skills.

“I don’t want to waste my skills. My parents made a lot of sacrifices for me to go through medical school. Canada must invest in skilled immigrants. It is good for us. It is good for Canada,” said Pasha, who has failed to secure a residency spot twice and is making a third attempt.

“I applied for a job as a ‘medical messenger’ to deliver drugs, but I’m not even good enough to deliver drugs.”