Canada: Immigrants easing IT job shortfall

Date: Wednesday, October 09, 2002 10:12 AM

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Tundra's chief executive said, "It's simply impossible to recruit enough
people from within Canada, so we're hiring them from outside." That must
have been music to the ears of the Russians who archived this article.

http://www.immigration.lt/ru/news/2002_04_08_immigrants_easing.htm

Immigrants easing IT job shortfall
Tundra's worldwide reach: Skills of highly qualified newcomers go
unrecognized

(National Post, April 8, 2002)
Andrea Mandel-Campbell
Financial Post

Tundra Semiconductor Corp. recently conducted an innovative experiment that
had nothing to do with making chips.

The Ottawa-based company placed a map of the world on the wall of its games
room and asked its 200 employees to identify where they came from.

At last count, 23 nationalities from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe
were represented on the map. While many of Tundra's staff are Canadian
citizens, a good number are new immigrants either recently arrived in Canada
or sponsored by Tundra to fill a massive shortfall of skilled workers in the
fast-growing information technology sector.

"It's simply impossible to recruit enough people from within Canada, so
we're hiring them from outside," said Adam Chowaniec, Tundra's chief
executive. "Many [immigrants] are highly qualified. That's the attraction in
the first place."

New immigrants are, in fact, becoming a crucial resource, say observers, as
Canada's IT sector faces a labour shortage aggravated by the exodus of
100,000 Canadians a year to the U.S. and a weak university system that is
unable to keep up with the demand for skilled workers.

According to the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC), the
$132-billion sector already faces a shortage of 30,000 workers as it grows
at a pace six times that of the rest of the economy. It will need another
25,000 workers by 2005.

"The sector is headed for trouble -- and soon," said Dr. Gaylen Duncan, ITAC
president, during a recent seminar hosted by the Conference Board of Canada.

"Despite the dot-com bust and the ongoing stock market troubles ... the
industry continues to face a shortage of talent."

It is a problem not limited to the high-tech sector.

Faced with an ageing population, rapid technological changes and the global
competition for talent, the federal government predicts that the shortage of
skilled workers -- ranging from physicians and nurses to aerospace
scientists -- will reach one million by 2020.

The challenge, say observers, is how to tap into the influx of immigrants
and turn Canada's brain drain into a brain gain. Being able to harness their
potential is crucial, they say, to maintaining Canada's standard of living
as well as boosting innovation and improving the country's lagging
productivity.

"We need to quit bemoaning the brain drain and capitalize on a Canadian
immigration policy, which is a competitive advantage to other countries,"
said Tim Penner, president of Procter & Gamble Canada.

But while Tundra has been successful to a degree -- it still had to buy a
small U.S. technology firm last year to access its workforce -- statistics
show there is a disconnect between desperate employers and a growing number
of recent immigrants, particularly visible minorities, who are becoming
increasingly impoverished.

According to a study by Edward Harvey, a University of Toronto professor,
the average employment income for visible minority immigrants, including
blacks, Asians and Latin Americans, dropped from $24,380 in 1991 to $23,298
in 1996. Income for non-visible minority immigrants rose over the same
period to $31,194.

More striking, the average percentage of visible minority immigrants below
the low-income cut-off rose to 34.3% from 25.1% over the same period. The
surge was more dramatic in Ontario, which receives the bulk of new
immigrants; the percentage of visible minorities below the cut-off rose from
20.9% to 32.5%.

Non-visible minority immigrants are also getting poorer. The percentage
below the low-income cut-off rose to 17.8% from 14.4% nationwide.

"What is the cost of all this to the Canadian economy? Billions and billions
of dollars lost in the underutilization of people," said Dr. Harvey. "Can we
afford these kinds of losses? Clearly not. Our competitive future is very
much contingent on knowledge industries."

Much of the loss can be attributed to the failure to recognize immigrants'
skills and educational levels, says Dr. Michael Bloom, director of education
and learning for the Conference Board of Canada. He calculates between
$4.1-billion to $5.9-billion in annual income could be gained if skills were
recognized.

To overcome the problem, Dr. Bloom suggests establishing a national
standards and recognition system. By having their credentials certified,
540,000 Canadians, including 340,000 immigrants, would stand to benefit with
average annual wage gains of $8,000 to $12,000, he says.

"We are going to need to find a way to engage immigrants more productively
or else the demographic reality is we're going to have a shocking impact on
our living standards," said Dr. Bloom.

Nonetheless, the growing need comes at a time when the federal government is
making it more difficult for skilled immigrants to enter the country.
Industry leaders say proposed changes to Canada's immigration policy, aimed
at sifting skilled workers from the unskilled, would actually disqualify an
Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate from getting a job in Canada.

"It's mind-boggling that a government bureaucrat is putting together a
policy that excludes exactly the kind of people we need," says Mr. Chowaniec
at Tundra.

Instead, Mr. Chowaniec proposes the federal government focus on promoting
Canada as a technologically innovative country -- rather than emphasizing
the traditional sectors of oil, gas and tourism -- in order to attract more
high tech workers.

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