Student retention crucial in Nova Scotia’s looming labour shortage

45,000 jobs are expected to open in the province in the next five years, and university students are being targeted to stay and fill the positions

Mike Barron would work in Nova Scotia after graduation if the pay were comparable to other provinces.

Barron, originally from Ontario, is in his final year of an electrical engineering degree at Dalhousie University. He completed a co-op term at Bruce Power in Ontario last year, and says many of the people in his program opted to leave the Maritimes for their job placements.

He says there were plenty of jobs available in Nova Scotia, although they typically paid less.

Labour Minister Mark Parent says 45,000 jobs are expected to open in Nova Scotia in the next five years, a huge number for a province with a population of less than a million.  With more young people moving out west than ever before, local universities and businesses are trying to encourage graduating students to stay and work in Atlantic Canada.

Human Resources and Social Development Canada released a report in 2006 called “Looking-Ahead: A 10-Year Outlook for the Canadian Labour Market.”

The report states that it expects the Canadian economy to grow at an annual rate of 1.1 per cent from 2005 to 2015, meaning nearly two million new jobs should be created in the Canadian marketplace over these 10 years.

These new jobs are opening because baby boomers are beginning to retire.

More than two-thirds of the new jobs will be in either management or occupations that require post-secondary education, the report states.

“Every new job is going to require some kind of post-secondary degree or diploma or some level of education past high school,” says Fred Morley, the Executive Vice-President of the Greater Halifax Partnership, a group that promotes economic growth in the city.

Morley says the labour shortage will affect every occupation in the province, from retail jobs to the sciences.

Universities are increasing their emphasis on job fairs and co-op terms to encourage students to enter the local business community after graduation.

Dr. Tom Traves, the president of Dalhousie University, said in a speech in early November that Dal will help the province operate in a labour-short economy.

“We bring in lots of people from other parts of the world, including other parts of Canada to study here and ultimately to stay and work here,” he says.

He said Dal sends about one-third of its undergraduate students to co-op job placements, which is an important recruitment tool for employers.

“Many of our students who are in co-op placements end up working in their first job at one of the companies they had a co-op placement,” says Traves. “This is an important linkage for us to the labour market.”

But Traves says Dal “could and should do much more here in Nova Scotia around the development of co-op education.”

Barron says the biggest factor for engineering students in choosing a co-op job was pay.

“There were a lot of jobs with Irving that would have taken them around New Brunswick, but given the choice between going there and say, Alberta, they would have taken the higher-paying job, seeing as they had to move anyways,” he says.

Morley says local companies will need to change the way they approach business to attract educated young people. An upcoming labour shortage may be good for job seekers, as employers will have to do more to attract young people to their businesses.

“Some employers are changing the whole way they approach the world,” says Morley. “To make sure they can attract people they need, they become more socially responsible, they become more environmentally responsible.”

There is also a correlation between the level of education and income received.

“Generally the rule is more education, the better your income’s going to be,” says Morley.

He says recently graduated students can now ask themselves where they want to live as opposed to where they can find a job.

“Where’s a nice place to live and what’s a nice company to work for? It’s not like, wow, there’s a job, let me grab it.”

But Barron says the recent economic crisis may limit his job opportunities.

“Especially with the way the economy’s kind of turning right now,” he says, “it might be more a case of going where I can get a job as opposed to going where I would choose to live.”

The labour shortage predictions may also be skewed by the elimination of Nova Scotia’s mandatory retirement age in 2007, meaning workers are no longer forced to retire at age 65.

In a 2007 news release, the labour minister said experienced workers are a “valuable resource, especially in our labour market where the skills shortage is a real concern.”

The elimination of the mandatory requirement age may lessen the blow of a labour scarcity in Nova Scotia, with older people able to work longer.

Despite these factors, there will still be a number of open jobs—and university students are being targeted to fill them.

“I like it out here because I did come out here to pursue my education,” says Barron. “If parity on things like pay and the hours worked could be achieved out here, then it would definitely be a good option [to stay in Nova Scotia].”

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