Reaching far and wide for workers
Canada broadens scope to alleviate skills shortage
By Derek Sankey, For the Calgary Herald
July 25, 2008
The new reality for Canadian companies looking to recruit workers increasingly means casting a wider net across the world while government and education leaders lead the charge overseas in the face of economic restraints.
"I believe with the shortage of labour in Canada, more and more companies will be going abroad not only to India, China and the Philippines, but also Eastern Europe," says Kirk White, recruitment co-ordinator in Fort McMurray with OPTI Canada Inc.
His company took part earlier this year in a recruitment drive to India organized by the Alberta government and NAIT in Edmonton. "The trip was extremely successful," he says, adding the company is in the process of hiring up to 28 short-listed candidates found across India at career fairs held in May.
"India is probably one of the best-educated (workforces) on the continent in terms of engineers and operators for our plants," says White.
Anywhere there's an educated, skilled workforce is squarely in the sights of Alberta recruiters. In June, the first-ever Opportunities Canada Expo was held in the U.K. targeting skilled workers in that country.
The U.K. recruitment drive was organized by the City of Calgary, Calgary Economic Development and the Alberta government's Employment and Immigration officers.
Some U.K. media headlines decried the "poaching" tactics by the dozen or so companies involved, yet those recruiters reported it as a great success. A similar trip to South Africa yielded a large pool of qualified candidates.
Labour is global. Wherever it is, any company that's serious about recruitment is now being forced to look globally in the eyes of more business leaders.
"We're short-staffed in every possible trade and degree," says White. "Those countries beyond Canada certainly provide a good labour pool."
The India recruitment drive included OPTI Canada, PCL Constructors Inc. and P&H Minepro Inc., along with NAIT and the Alberta government.
Sadhna Gupta, an economic immigration specialist with Alberta Employment and Immigration, took part on the most recent trip to India and says organizers are planning to return this fall.
"We were overwhelmed with the response," says Gupta. "It is a global workforce and quite honestly, (Canada) is the last to leave the gate. Australia and New Zealand have been in India recruiting very strongly."
Working the Labour Attraction branch of the government agency, Gupta is continually hunting for opportunities to assist employers reach out to places such as India because it is "a potential source to help alleviate our labour crunch here."
Deepak Brahmbhatt, a spokesperson with NAIT, says one of the biggest hurdles for any company is lack of knowledge about the local language, culture, the immigration process and considerable distance.
"You need to get where the industries are, so we strategically looked at what workers they were looking for and that's where we went to recruit," says Brahmbhatt.
They targeted oil and gas hubs, regional trades centres and places with large populations of transient, globally-experienced workers. North India, for example, contains more trades workers, while the southern coastal areas tend to have more professional, degree-educated workers.
"There are 3.7 billion workers in the Middle East (and Asia) as temporary workers migrating back and forth," he says. "If we get those kinds of workers . . . they are able to fit into the Alberta market."
White, meanwhile, says the willingness to relocate to Canada was one of the motivating factors to exploring recruitment from India. Since the company's strategy of having a local workforce means there are no fly-in, fly-out services with the company, he expects people to live and work in the Fort McMurray community.
"The issue and concern that will be ongoing is the quick turnaround in getting them into Canada," he says, adding red tape and the immigration process can quickly derail good intentions.
Gupta agrees companies need to educate themselves about what it takes to effectively recruit from overseas before diving in without adequate knowledge.
"You can't just take a flight and walk in and take it from there," she says. "You have to be very targeted. There are lots of opportunities, but lots of challenges."
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