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Canada: Aging Workforce May Hurt Coming ICT Hiring Spree |
| Source: |
itbusiness.ca |
| Source Date: |
Monday, April 02, 2012 |
| Focus: |
ICT for MDGs
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| Country: |
Canada |
| Created: |
Apr 10, 2012 |
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Canada's information and communications technology sector (ICT) is poised for a surge in job openings but an aging talent pool threatens to leave more of them unfilled than recruiters would like, a new report suggests.
About 106,000 ICT jobs will be created in Canada by 2016 “with a demand that far exceeds the supply, in both traditional and emerging ICT sectors,” the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) said in a report released today.
Canada's ICT workforce is aging rapidly, as figures from ICTC and StatsCan suggest.
Finding enough workers to fill those new positions could prove tough, however. In 2001, there 23,000 Canadian ICT workers aged 55 and older – they made up four per cent of the total ICT workforce. By 2011 the number of 55-plus aged workers more than doubled to 60,000 workers or nine per cent of the overall ICT workforce, the study on ICT labour trends found.
To tackle the problem of an aging ICT talent pool, better efforts must be made to recruit youth, Aboriginal people, women and foreign workers to the sector and “close the gap between industry needs and academia by preparing graduates for the new business paradigm and accelerate their deployment in the industry,” the report recommends.
Despite its aging labour pool, things are generally looking up for Canada's ICT sector. Although the global economic downturn has presented many challenges to the industry in recent years, the jobless rate in the sector fell from 4.2 per cent in 2009 to three per cent in 2011. And ICT salaries rose by three per cent between 2010 and 2011. There are strong indications that “many employers are planning to further increase (ICT) salaries in 2012,” according to the study.
Some of the positions that were most in demand or posted the highest job gains in 2011 were Web designers and developers, electrical and electronics engineers, information systems business analysts, graphic designers and illustrators, interactive media developers, and systems security analysts. Positions that were actually oversupplied -- with too many workers for too few jobs -- were Web technicians, user support technicians and systems testing technicians.
Ontario continues to be the home province for the majority of Canada's ICT workers with nearly half -- 48 per cent -- of the country's ICT labour force residing there.
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Canada: Aging Workforce May Hurt Coming ICT Hiring Spree Canada's information and communications technology sector ICT is poised for a surge in job openings but an aging talent pool threatens to leave more of them unfilled than recruiters would like a new report suggests
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