Pie-in-the sky forecast present rosy picture despite unemployment gloom
By Emmy Buccat
The British Columbia 2022 Labour Market Outlook forecasted earlier this year over one million job openings in the province in the next seven years despite the massive chill brought about unemployment data severely affecting full time jobs.
The forecast predicts that migrant workers will fill some 300,000 projected job openings or one-third of the projection even as an altered labor policy is now causing temporary foreign workers to go home.
The labour demand, according to the BC labour study, is largely driven by the baby boomer retirement at 68 per cent, while 32 per cent is due to the economic growth.
However, the forecast looks like is a faulty one with the string of lay-off and retail store closure announcements in the first quarter of the year.
The Hospital Employee’s Union (HEU) of British Columbia announced in March that around 1,200 healthcare workers will be laid off in Metro Vancouver. Around 240 staff at Laurel’s Place, a long-term care facility in Surrey had received layoff notices from the Ahmon Group. Meanwhile, Aramark had lost its commercial contract to clean the Vancouver Coastal Health hospitals and extended care facilities. They will lay off about 935 staff in August.
The outlook predicted that the nursing profession and other health occupations would be the top three with the highest number of job openings at 2 per cent anticipated growth closely followed by the trades, transport and equipment operators and the natural and applied sciences occupations both having 1.3 per cent growth. These top three jobs are expected to grow rapidly than the provincial annual growth rate.
The labour demand, according to the BC labour study, is largely driven by the baby boomer retirement at 68 per cent, while 32 per cent is due to the economic growth. However, the forecast looks like is a faulty one with the string of lay-off and retail store closure announcements in the first quarter of the year.
Across Canada, the unemployment rate will continue to fall as thousands of retail workers braced themselves with the closure of major retail establishments. With Target’s closure of 133 stores, around 17,600 will lose their jobs later this year. Earlier this year, Sony had closed 14 stores and Mexx Canada closed 95 stores nationwide.
Alberta alone lost 14,000 jobs in February as a spate of continued closure of oil sands project drove down the province economy and left it with a gaping budget short fall estimated at $5 billion.
The study advised that for those who want to dodge this ongoing trend in B.C., one should highly consider getting a post-secondary education, as 78% of the one million job openings would require it.
On the other hand, for those who are thinking of upgrading their skills or starting a new career, they can equip themselves with trade and technical certificates, which require a shorter period of training. They can take advantage of the $4,000 grant provided by the federal government while completing their apprenticeship training.
The Mainland and Southwest region remained to be the place to find the highest number of jobs with 641,500 openings reflecting a 65 per cent share in the overall outlook.
“The five occupations forecasted to expand the fastest in the Mainland and Southwest region are mine service workers and operators in oil and gas drilling (2.9 per cent annually on average); underground miners, oil and gas drillers and related occupations (2.8 per cent); contractors and supervisors, mining, oil and gas (2.5 per cent); managers in natural resources production and fishing (2.3 per cent); and optometrists, chiropractors and other health diagnosing and treating professionals (2.0 per cent). Over the forecast period, strong employment growth in the Mining, and Oil and Gas industries in northern B.C. is expected.”
All these occupations had suffered a downturn as oil prices hit rock bottom.
The complete list of the top 60 in demand jobs, as BC projects it, can be found at workbc.ca. One way to find out how to prepare in getting the job can be found at workbc.ca/BlueprintBuilder.
