Few Montreal businesses have been left untouched by the province's ongoing labour shortage.
“Anyone who walks around the city is seeing the help wanted signs in the windows of many stores, restaurants, and businesses right now,” said Simon Gaudreault, vice president of national research with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).
Nearly 200,000 jobs are vacant across the province—a number he said is likely to increase over the next decade.
“In Montreal, and the rest of Quebec, we have an ageing population. There are simply not enough workers joining the labour force every year to fill the needs that we have now and in the future,” said Gaudreault.
One in four Quebecers will be 65 or older by the year 2031, compared to one out of six a decade ago.
“Most baby boomers have retired or are about to do so,” said Denis Hamel, vice president of workforce development policies at the Quebec Employers Council (CPQ).
“Since 2016, we have had more people leaving the labour market than entering. We will have to live with this situation for the next ten years,” he said.
A recent CPQ survey found 94 per cent of polled businesses report a severe labour shortage across skilled and unskilled positions.
No region is spared with six per cent of all Quebec jobs remaining vacant.
“It’s not just a question of shifting demographics, but also low immigration that is making the labour shortage so severe at this time,” said Hamel.
The province cut back on immigration right before the pandemic hit, he said.
Then 18,000 immigrant workers didn’t show up last year, due to stringent border controls during the first and second waves of COVID-19.
That is having far-reaching consequences in the manufacturing industries, where companies are struggling to fill the most basic positions.
“We need immigrants to fill many of those roles... Now more than ever, Quebecers are looking to improve their quality of life and searching for higher paying jobs. That’s normal, but it creates an issue when you’re running a plant and you need people to fill entry-level jobs,” said Véronique Proulx, president and CEO of Manufacturiers et Exportateurs du Québec (MEQ).
Around 25,000 manufacturing positions remain vacant across the province, according to a MEQ survey this summer that polled 400 companies.
“The economy in Quebec is fairly strong, but our surveys show labour shortages cost over $18 billion the past two years in manufacturing. So could we do better? Absolutely,” she said.
Proulx said many companies could do better on international markets and want to develop new customers but are held back because they can’t get the workers they need.
“It also comes down to missing workers, individuals who could be working but aren’t,” said Chamber of Commerce President Michel Leblanc.
“The numbers right now show about 130,000 missing workers. During the pandemic, they either reoriented to other sectors, went back to study, or decided to take a break from working,” he said.
Sectors like healthcare and education, which have always had a tight market, have felt that most strongly, Leblanc said.
“The pandemic has compounded the whole labour issue. I know a lot of teachers who have taken unpaid leaves of absence, or who have retired earlier than they were planning to, because they didn’t want to be in schools with a virus running rampant,” said Montreal Teacher Association President Lori Newton.
The pandemic may have worsened an ongoing teacher exodus, she said, but it’s an ever growing workload that’s discouraging retention and new hires.
“Until some of the strain on teachers is removed, the labour shortage in the education sector, as in many sectors, will continue to worsen,” she said.
This article is part of a special Help Wanted series looking into different aspects of the labour shortage. For more, tune in Monday through Thursday at 6:40 am on the Andrew Carter Morning Show!