CIMM – Labour Shortages – November 25, 2024

Key Facts and Figures

As Canada’s economy continues to recover from the pandemic, several industries are dealing with persistent labour shortages which are anticipated to continue into the future.
In the trades sector, 700,000 skilled trades workers are set to retire between 2019 and 2028.
In healthcare, annual employment growth for the sector has been 2.5% annually over the past decade, compared to 0.9% for the overall Canadian economy. There has been a quadrupling of vacancies in health human resources between 2015 and 2023.
In agriculture, long-term labour shortages have caused over 28,000 positions to go unfilled in 2022. The gap in the sector between labour demand and supply is expected to reach 15% by 2030.
In transportation, the projected shortages by year 2035 will be anywhere between 70,000 to 130,000; predominantly in aviation, followed by trucking.

Given Canada’s aging population, growth in both temporary and permanent immigration has been essential to supporting economic growth and responding to labour market shortages, and now contributes to nearly 100% of Canada’s labour force growth. Immigration is a vital source of labour to many occupations that face persistent long-term shortages.
However, there is a need to better align temporary and permanent resident immigration levels to help achieve well-managed, sustainable growth in the long term. The 2025-2027 Levels Plan includes, for the first time, temporary resident targets for international students and temporary foreign workers. The targets for 2025 are 367,750 for workers overall (82K for Temporary Foreign Worker Program [TFWP] and 285,750 for the International Mobility Program [IMP]) and 305,900 for students. This represents a new holistic approach to managed migration and to continue responding to the needs of both newcomers and Canadians.
There is more to do to ensure we welcome newcomers with the skills we need to fill jobs in in-demand areas, such as home-building, health-care, and transportation, as well as supporting the jobs of the future.
We have put in place measures to target immigration in key sectors and will continue to make improvements to ensure that Canada can attract and retain the people we need.

In summer 2023, we launched category-based selection in Express Entry, which allows us to bring in more immigrants with work experience in in-demand occupations at the higher-skilled level (TEER 0-3). Categories established in 2023 and continued in 2024 included healthcare, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), trades, transport, and agriculture and agri-food, as well as individuals with strong French-language skills.
On March 21, 2024, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced the government’s intention to reduce existing temporary resident volumes to 5% of Canada’s population by the end of 2026. As part of this plan, we are recalibrating the TFWP and IMP to ensure they are closely aligned with current and emerging labour market needs. For example, we implemented temporary worker measures to facilitate the entry of highly-skilled tech talent and French-speaking workers from all occupations and skills levels. Guidance to officers was also updated to encourage a longer authorization to work and stay in Canada for certain post-graduation work permit holders, allowing Canada to retain high-skilled talent.