Analysing Job sectors in Canada. Identify trends in employment and occupational demand patterns for two job positions in two industries (each) for two different provinces.

International Baccalaureate Business Studies

Culminating Activity for Unit 1

Select three jobs: one knowledge-based, one manufacturing, and one in the service sector. Based on your search of the websites of Human Resource Development Canada, Stats Canada, and other relevant Web sources, what patterns in employment and job vacancies do you see? What are the implications for large human resource departments in these industries?

Identify trends in employment and occupational demand patterns for two job positions in two industries (each) for two different provinces.

The OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) economies are increasingly based on knowledge and information. Knowledge is now recognized as the driver of productivity and economic growth, leading to a new focus on the role of information, technology and learning in economic performance. Canada's economy is increasingly a knowledge-based economy. Two-thirds of all the new jobs being created require some kind of post-secondary education. Over the next decade, Canada will need 3 million health-care professionals and 1.7 million schoolteachers and more than 900,000 engineers, including aerospace, biomedical, civil, computer software, and environmental engineers. Canada will also need workers in other high-growth industries including nanotechnology, geospatial technology, and the life sciences, to name a few.

Employment in the knowledge-based economy is characterized by increasing demand for more highly-skilled workers, along with investment in infrastructure, is driving further specialization of jobs, which is leading to a higher level of demand for professional services such as accountants, engineers, doctors. Higher-skilled jobs that require more education are clearly the future for Canada in the worldwide economy. And acquiring the skills and training to access these jobs is absolutely critical to the success of individual workers. From 2001 through 2006, high-paying occupations grew almost three times as much as lower-paying occupations. There is a "skills gap" in Canada’s economy that has kept lower-skilled workers from seeing their wages rise as quickly as workers in higher-skilled occupations. It's not just temporary public sector infrastructure projects driving demand for jobs in areas such as mechanical and civil engineering, but a broader trend toward highly skilled, service-based professionals. Services are routinely outsourced to specialized companies, and that trend is expected to continue in health care, law, accounting, architecture, engineering and construction. As the population ages, health-care specialists of all kinds will continue to be a huge growth area in employment. Other professionals are seeing similar levels of demand. Alberta, which has seen layoffs in the oil patch recently, still projects a long-term demand for more engineers, and companies are increasingly using their services as oil sands projects begin to get underway following a period of delays. The high level of regulation, such as the recently introduced specified gas emitter regulation in Alberta, is compounding the demand for engineers and accountants, giving rise to entirely new specializations.

With the new school year starting, students need to be aware that high school dropouts make about $522 per week for full-time work and their unemployment rate is about 7.1 percent. Meanwhile, workers with a high school diploma average $704 weekly, and this segment of the work force has a 4.4 percent unemployment rate. Workers with associate degrees average about $846 per week, and this group's unemployment rate is 3.5 percent. But workers with a bachelor's degree or higher average $1,393 per week and have an unemployment rate of 2.1 percent. Employment patterns for postsecondary students who work during the school year changed significantly during the recent economic downturn.

During the 2009/2010 school year, about 542,000 postsecondary students aged 15 to 24 held jobs. This represented an employment rate of 45%, down from 48% in 2007/2008, just before the economic downturn. Nevertheless, these rates were well above those during the 1970s when 25% of students were employed. Almost all students employed during the 2009/2010 school year worked in the service sector (96%), with 36% in retail trade and 18% in food services. The 200,000 students working in retail trade represented 10% of all jobs in that industry.

It is skilled labour that is in highest demand in the OECD countries. The average unemployment rate for people with lower-secondary education is 10.5 per cent, falling to 3.8 per cent for those with university education. Although the manufacturing sector is losing jobs across the OECD, employment is growing in high-technology, science-based sectors ranging from computers to pharmaceuticals. These jobs are more highly skilled and pay higher wages than those in lower-technology sectors (e.g. textiles and food-processing). Knowledge-based jobs in service sectors are also growing strongly. Indeed, non-production or “knowledge” workers – those who do not engage in the output of physical products – are the employees in most demand in a wide range of activities, from computer technicians, through physical therapists to marketing specialists. The use of new technologies, which are the engine of longer-term gains in productivity and employment, generally improves the “skills base” of the labour force in both manufacturing and services. And it is largely because of technology that employers now pay more for knowledge than for manual work.

Manufacturing and Knowledge-Based Industries are drivers of Economic Growth and are a new path to prosperity. Manufacturing is also compared as an engine of economic growth with high-paying, knowledge-based industries such as information, financial activities, professional and technical services, and management of companies. People who belong to professional organizations with regulatory authority and federal or provincial licensing requirements tend to become specialized within a specific area, and their knowledge as subject matter experts yields higher pay. Those jobs are also highly mobile and offer more flexibility in the job market. Studies in some countries show that the more rapid the introduction of knowledge-intensive means of production, such as those based on information technologies, the greater the demand for highly skilled workers. Other studies show that workers who use advanced technologies, or are employed in firms that have advanced technologies, are paid higher wages. This labour market preference for workers with general competencies in handling codified knowledge is having negative effects on the demand for less-skilled workers; there are concerns that these trends could exclude a large and growing proportion of the labour force from normal wage work.

It's a more competitive labour market and likely a more balanced one. Gone are the days of wildly lucrative perks, but that doesn't mean companies aren't willing to pay for the professional talent they need to make money. For example in the accounting field, the newly introduced International Financial Reporting Standards are creating more demand for accountants who specialize in that area, in addition to the work being created by higher levels of mergers and acquisitions.

Independent professionals and entrepreneurs will mostly generate the hottest jobs of the economy in the future. The days of reliance on manufacturing jobs are limited as the economy continues to shift toward service-and knowledge-based jobs. A further specialization of labour is anticipated but nonetheless.

The challenges experienced by Canadian manufacturers in the past few years are a subject of public policy interest. These challenges have very real effects on the economy. From 2004 to 2008, more than one in seven manufacturing jobs, nearly 322,000, disappeared. In some regions of the country where the economy is not very diversified, the loss of manufacturing jobs can have particularly negative effects. In these regions, the closure of even a single plant, supplied by several companies, can weaken the economy. At the same time, job growth in other industries has been relatively strong. In fact, from 2004 to 2008, over 1.5 million jobs were created in the rest of the economy—a growth of 11%. The national unemployment rate through 2007 and 2008 was also regularly among the lowest in the past 30 years. Manufacturing is clearly faring worse than the rest of the economy. Canada is far from being the only country having to deal with a downturn in its manufacturing base. The United States, which continues to be Canada's largest trading partner, lost close to one-quarter (4.1 million) of its manufacturing jobs between 1998 and 2008. The vast majority of other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries have also recorded major job losses in this industry in the past few years. From 1990 to 2003, employment in manufacturing decreased by 29% in the United Kingdom, 24% in Japan, 20% in Belgium and Sweden, and 14% in France. Ireland was the only country to experience impressive growth (25%). However, this growth was in the specific context of an influx of foreign investment and a service sector that grew even more rapidly than manufacturing. Mexico, Spain, and, to a lesser extent, Canada and New Zealand were the only other countries to increase manufacturing jobs from 1990 to 2003. The last available year for purposes of international comparisons being 2003, the result for Canada does reflect the significant job losses since 2004. The share of manufacturing in total employment has regressed persistently in almost all OECD member countries. This is not a recent trend. For example, in the early 1970s, more than one in five jobs in the United States were in manufacturing. In 2003, this proportion barely exceeded 11%. In the United Kingdom, over 30% of jobs in the early 1970s were in manufacturing. In 2003, this proportion dropped to 12%.

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Over the long term, the proportion of service-sector jobs has increased while manufacturing's share has declined in almost all OECD countries. This phenomenon, if it can explain the long-term trends in the relative share of manufacturing jobs in total employment, does not explain the decline in the absolute number of manufacturing jobs. Other factors are likely to contribute on various scales to this general trend among the most industrialized countries: structural contributors such as the phenomenon of production moving to countries like China. As manufacturing activity has declined in relative importance in OECD countries, China has become the world centre of manufacturing employment. In fact, the number of workers in manufacturing in China was estimated at 109 million in 2002, which represents more than double the combined total (53 million) in all of the G-7 member countries. Demographics (in particular the aging of the population observed in almost all developed countries) contribute to the increase in demand for services at the expense of manufactured products. In fact, the total final demand in numerous OECD countries shows a progressive decrease in the demand for manufactured products. When productivity growth in manufacturing is greater than that in the services-producing sector, a reallocation of manufacturing jobs to the service sector can be expected. Variations in the exchange rate certainly have a significant impact on manufacturing in any country actively involved in international trade. Canada has experienced major fluctuations in its exchange rate for the last ten years with no general trend in appreciation or depreciation. The effect on manufacturing firms is unclear because the effect on income from exports can be compensated in large part by the effect on the prices of imported inputs. Over the past ten years, the labour market in manufacturing was marked by a period of great drive, slowdown, and a significant decline. After recording very weak growth of 0.7% in 2004, employment in manufacturing experienced a clear downward trend with successive annual losses of at least 3% from 2005 to 2008. In these four years, more than one in seven manufacturing jobs were lost.

According to a new report by HRSDC, Canada's total employment is expected to grow at an annual average rate of 1.1% over the 2006 to 2015 period. Although this represents a slowdown relative to the 2.0% average rate of the period 1996-2005, the Canadian economy would still create about 1.9 million new jobs over the next 10 years. The overall growth in employment levels is constrained by the projected rate of growth of labour supply in Canada, which is slowing as a result of slower population growth and the ageing of the baby boom generation of workers. The Graph below shows the percentage of employment in the service sector per capita income over time.

The activities of services-producers account for more than two-thirds of total industry-based GDP in Canada. Between 2001 and 2010, the sectors that produce services saw the GDP grow at an average rate of 2.7% per year. While annual growth for the services-producing industries only increased by 2.6% in 2010 following an increase of 0.3% in 2009.The Bar Chart above shows the increase in the annual GDP growth in the service-producing industries.

In conclusion, one cannot really determine or say that one job is more in demand as a whole than another because it depends on the country or region that one is focusing on. For example, Alberta, which is famous for its oil sands, has lots of job vacancies and opportunities in the manufacturing sector such as the extracting of oil, or in Kingston the retiring service companies other services for old people have more job vacancies than knowledge based businesses or than the manufacturing sector, or Dubai, which is a famous and modernized famous for its tall buildings and architecture, has more job vacancies in the knowledge based business such as engineers and financial managers. Each country or region has different jobs in demand but in general as a whole, knowledge based businesses and service industries are increasing rapidly and demand for those businesses are going up and taking over the market because in the manufacturing sector capital is the fuel of growth and is an absolute necessity for fast-growth manufacturing businesses.

Main Areas of Employment

Examples of knowledge-based, manufacturing, and service sector jobs are financial managers, the automotive industry, and dentists respectively.

Financial Managers: Demand for money managers is increasing as the private and government sectors are looking for whizzes who know the complexities of financial management. If one has knowledge of foreign finance or is fluent in a foreign language, consider himself doubly attractive and should pack his bags for a potentially jet-set international career. Financial managers plan, organize, direct, control and evaluate the operation of financial and accounting departments. They develop and implement the financial policies and systems of establishments. Financial managers establish performance standards and prepare various financial reports for senior management. Career opportunities will primarily arise from the need to replace directors of finance, many of whom are about to retire or to be promoted. In fact, the experience of financial managers allows them to meet the requirements to fill senior positions, especially in the financial sector. There will be a few additional opportunities as a result of job creation. These opportunities are generally filled through internal promotions or by specialized recruitment agencies (headhunters). Corporate mergers, contracting out, reductions in the number of managerial levels and the consolidation of financial and accounting services within firms were the main reasons for the employment decline since 10 years. Some of the functions formerly performed by directors of finance are now the responsibility of accountants or partners in accounting firms or audit firms. On the other hand, adapting financial and accounting services to international trade somewhat slowed down this trend. However, since the turn of the century, this downward trend has clearly weakened, which seems to suggest that the factors that contributed to the decline in the number of financial managers have already produced their key results. Consequently, the number of financial managers is expected to increase slightly over the next few years. Career opportunities will primarily arise from the need to replace directors of finance, many of whom are about to retire or to be promoted. These positions are generally filled through internal promotions or by specialized recruitment agencies (headhunters). The number of financial managers is expected to increase slightly over the next few years. It goes without saying that today’s job market makes it as much of a challenge to advance in a career as it does to begin one. Three out of 10 people work in the finance industry, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. For example in the U.S., in 2008, financial managers held 539,300 jobs and 7 percent were employed by local, state or Federal government. Job prospects for financial managers is expected to average the same as the all other occupations, but is anticipated to increase by 8 percent by the year 2018. Competition for those jobs will be stiff because the number of job openings is expected to be less than the number of applicants. Financial transactions will continue to become more complex and global, thus there will also be a need for financial managers who can handle these transactions and manage an increasing amount of investments, especially in the securities and commodity industries. The continued globalization of finance and regulatory changes within the industry will increase need for financial managers, which in turn will spur the creation of new business and drive job growth.

Automotive Industry: The automotive sector is Canada’s largest manufacturing sector, accounting for 12% of its manufacturing GDP and 25% of its manufacturing trade. The principal objective of this study is to calculate the impact of changes in Canada’s trade policy on the automotive sector. The study is organized in five sections: the first identifies current and future trends in the industry; the second contains an econometric model to analyse the market effects of four trade policy scenarios on automobile production; the third identifies the impact of trade policy on foreign direct investment; the fourth contains an analysis of the market effects of trade policy changes on the aftermarket auto parts sector; and the last section of the study discusses the future direction of the automotive industry. Despite record sales in North America over the past few years, the long-term trend for the automotive industry is weighted towards higher growth rates in lesser developed economies, particularly China, Korea, Mexico, Brazil, India and Thailand. While global production increased by a factor of six between 1950 and 2004, combined production in Canada and the United States less than doubled over the same time period. Even though Canadian exports of finished vehicles remain very strong, there is a significant reliance on the U.S. market. From a policy perspective, there is little Canada can do about this. The export potential for vehicles produced in Canada is effectively driven by the type of vehicles foreign-owned manufacturers decide to produce in their Canadian assembly plants. The larger growth area for the Canadian automotive industry in recent decades has been in parts and components which, by 2002, had reached 66% of total automotive employment, up from 55% in 1991. Exports of automotive parts, while also very concentrated in the United States, are slightly more diversified than is the case for vehicles.

The two line graphs above show the slow growth of automotive industry in Canada and USA compared to other countries which shows that in the future years there will be lots of competition and Canada will not be able to compete with them and grow with the same rate of Japan and China. Furthermore, the red line is for USA and Canada combined, USA’s economy contributes to a large amount in the world therefore if we were to consider Canada only the line might even have decrease instead of increasing in the first line graph. There are many factors that are likely to affect the future direction of the automotive industry in Canada, including: the types of fuels that cars will be using; whether current trends towards keeping manufacturing close to the location of the final customer remain constant; future sales volumes in North America; the location of research and development; and government policy. However, among the limited areas where government intervention may have an effect on the automotive sector, intervention in the area of trade policy is likely to have a more limited net effect on welfare than alternatives such as investment, research and development, and infrastructure support. Canada had, and continues to have, marginally lower operating costs than the U.S. and a strong industrial culture that attracts investment. However, Mexico's integration into the North American production system, in addition to the rise of the southern U.S. as a new centre of automotive production has begun to erode this advantage. Because the North American market is saturated and comprised largely of sales of replacement vehicles, locational shifts in production and employment within North America are essentially "zero-sum games," with some places losing out as others gain. These trends are long standing and well known. They have led Canada's future competitiveness in automobiles to be examined and re-examined, on a regular basis. If the market share of the Big 3 continues to fall and the southward shift of the industry within the U.S. continues, the Canadian industry could eventually face more difficult times and even permanent decline. This uncertainty, along with the importance of the industry in Canada, has attracted the attention of Canadian policy makers working to assure that the nation continues to provide good manufacturing jobs for its citizens and maintains its positive balance of trade but nonetheless, manufacturing jobs as a whole are headed to a decline but the automotive industry is recovering and improving from 2010 and the good news is that to be even better. Adding to the momentum will be the introduction of more hybrid models than ever before and a few of the first pure electric vehicles will finally be hitting the road. This new trend (alt-energy transportation) can only escalate in the coming years.

Dentists:

Approximately 64 percent of Canadians aged 12 and over visited a dental office in 2003.
In January 2007, there were 18,861 licensed dentists in Canada. Among these, males accounted for approximately 76% of the total. Roughly 37% were 40 years of age or under.
The Pie Chart below shows the percentages of dentists in different areas

In June 2007, there were 57.5 dentists per 100,000 people in Canada. There were wide variations from province to province. In Newfoundland and Labrador, the number of dentists per 100,000 people was 31.4 whereas this number was 65 in British Columbia. The Bar Chart below shows the dentists in different specialist sectors.

In 2005, approximately 63.7% of the Canadian population aged 12 and older consulted a dentist. The highest consultation rate was in the 12-19 years age group (78.6%) and the lowest in the 75 years and older age group (40.8%).

Health care in Canada is under provincial jurisdiction, and each province has its own dental legislation that impacts dental services. Dental services are not included as Medicare services under the national Canada Health Act, however dental services provided in hospitals are covered under Medicare, however these and other public dental services represent a very small proportion of the overall dental services in Canada. With the facts shown above, dentistry is a field you can really , whether you've got the stamina to stick it out through three years of undergrad university studies plus four to five years of dentistry school or want to get working in this field sooner by becoming a dental hygienist. There are 10 dental schools in Canada. All dental schools are in publicly funded universities. Entrance to dental school requires at least 2 years of undergraduate university pre-requisites, although most students entering dental programs have a bachelor’s degree in Canada. The dental public health workforce is a key and necessary component of Canada's public health care system, often meeting the needs of those Canadians that access dental care through public financing. There are currently more job openings than there are qualified people to fill them, in both positions. The industry will continue to grow as Canada's aging population requires more care, more Canadians enjoy dental coverage, and the booming demand for adult cosmetic dentistry continues. The lack of dental schools, the difficulty in graduating, and the high demand for dentists throughout the population makes dentistry more in demand. Furthermore, the small amount of dentists per 100,000 people strengthens this service industry. Over 23 million Canadians consult dentists annually. Total expenditures on dental services in Canada in 2006 have been estimated at $9.94 billion. Of this, $9.45 billion are private sector expenditures and only 4.9% are public expenditures. The expenditures on dental services are 6.7% of the total health expenditures in Canada. The increase in dental service expenditures from 2005 to 2006 was 4.8% which shows that more people are confronting this service. The main reason why there is not a lot of dentists is that public health dentists are really low and most people go to private dentists and the cost is very high for new graduates to open their own clinic and compete with dentists who are already famous and have a high reputation. In conclusion, in the future years to come, demand for dentistry services will be high and will grow at a rapid rate.

Civil Engineers in Alberta and Ontartio

Increased enrolments and graduations in recent years boosted labour supply. However, these gains are insufficient to meet growing labour requirements during the recovery and excess supply falls. Annual gains in employment exceeding 2% combine with high levels of retirement to reduce excess supply and tighten markets in most years. Employment for civil engineers is primarily driven by output in professional, scientific and management services (including engineering consulting services), government investment and construction. Employment growth across the scenario is slightly faster than for the general engineering workforce. Recovery in information, professional and scientific services is slower; delaying the employment recovery. Construction, government and other sectors recover lost ground by 2011; adding employment. Immigrants arriving in the Alberta workforce have been increasing slowly since 2000 and outnumber the incremental supply of new graduates from post secondary programs. The graph below shows that after the year 2009, civil engineering is recovering and is expected to rise over the next couple of years.

The graph above shows that during the next couple of years, the excess supply of civil engineers is expected to decrease therefore it will make the demand for civil engineers high in Alberta during the next couple of years. Excess supply increased as enrolments and graduations slowly rose from 2004 to 2008 and, Lower levels of permanent immigrants have been offset by rising numbers of temporary foreign workers. Sustaining these gains is not enough to meet growing labour requirements during the recovery and excess supply falls. Annual gains in employment exceeding 2% combine with high levels of retirement to reduce excess supply and tighten markets in most years. Labour requirements are dominated by retirements while additions to the workforce come from new graduates and temporary foreign workers; creating a potential mismatch of skills and experience.

Employment of civil engineers is driven by investment and employment in professional, scientific and management services (including engineering consulting services), government services and construction. Employment growth for civil engineers is below the overall average for all engineering occupations across the 2007 to 2018 period. Industry stakeholders noted that demand is strong for structural engineers and that this group is a component of and markets are related to civil work. The graph on the previous page also shows that civil engineers are on the rise in Ontario.

Excess supply has been low as additions to the workforce have lagged while employment has trended up compared to Alberta. Labour markets grow steadily tighter as the recovery ends and a modest expansion takes hold. Replacement demands combine with rising employment and run ahead of additions to the work force.

In conclusion, one of the main reasons that civil engineers is on the rise is because Ontario and Alberta are the two most rich provinces in Canada and most of the immigrants who move to Canada, reside in one of these two states. With the rise of immigrants in the past couple of years, houses have to be built for them therefore civil engineers is a job that will have an increasing trend during the next couple of years. It seems that in Ontario the excess supply of Civil Engineers is a bit unstable compared to the levels of excess supply predicted in Alberta during the next couple of years.

Nursing in British Columbia and Ontario

Nurses make up the largest proportion of health workers in Canada. They make up more than 25% of the workforce. Whether in hospitals, home care or nursing care facilities, they play an integral role in the health care system, which touches the life of every Canadian. These days they are under increasing pressure as their employers are faced with fewer resources for providing patient care. Several factors have come into play: an aging workforce that is fast approaching retirement; declining enrolment in nursing programs. Nurses are critical for a healthy society and societal trends are increasing the need for nurses. These trends include: a growing and aging population; an heterogeneous, differentiated and more unequal society; contrasts between urban, rural and northern contexts; cultural diversity and vulnerable social groups facing marginalization; a technologized health-care delivery system thirsty for human touch; and finite resources. As the need for nurses increases, the pool of available nurses continues to decline. Funding cuts have resulted in unbearable working conditions and unhealthy work environments. Poor staffing patterns resulting in heavy workloads, and the lack of professional development opportunities, have lead to an emotionally and physically exhausted nursing workforce. The widespread forced move to part-time and casual work has led to fragmented patient care and the prevention of nurses with their profession. An often discussed issue is the aging of the regulated nursing workforce. With more RNs approaching the traditional retirement age, the Canadian Institute for Health Information projects that by 2006, Canada could lose up to 13% of its 2001 RN workforce

A global nursing shortage means Ontario must increase its leadership to protect and strengthen the profession. Ontario is poised to lose 6000 Registered Nurses to retirement or death in 2004. It could lose up to 23,000 Registered Nurses by 2006. The total supply of RNs registered in Ontario has fallen from 113,823 in 1994 to 107,221 in 2002. Recruitment has not kept pace with departures. Nursing in Canada has ironically become one of the sickest professions, due to stresses and burnout. At the same time as the RN supply has shrunk and employment has remained still, Ontario’s population continues to grow. The Ontario public currently needs about 14,000 more RNs. Furthermore, Ontario has the worst RN-to-population ratio in the country (65.0 RNs per 100,000, compared to 78.6 for the rest of Canada. The situation has been deteriorating for many years and much faster than it has for the rest of the country. Ontario is losing RNs in many ways; they are leaving Ontario to work elsewhere (6,336 of those who retain Ontario registration alone; we do not know how many others left without retaining registration here), they are leaving for other kinds of work, and they are retiring, often well before age 65.

In 2001, the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario surveyed over 3,000 RNs registered in Ontario but currently living and working outside of Canada. The majority (62.7%) left because of lack of employment opportunities.

Within Canada, the top three destinations for work for Canadian-educated regulated nursing graduates were British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. As RPNs are regulated in only the four western provinces, their top two destinations for work were Alberta and British Columbia. It is particularly important to track the older age groups in order to predict exit trends. In 2007, the majority of jurisdictions had their highest proportion of nurses in the 50-to-54 age group. These included the territories, British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec and Prince Edward Island. In Canada as a whole, each of the four baby boomer age groups accounts for about 15% of the workforce. Baby boomers account for close to 60% of the workforce, the largest group.In 2005, the College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia conducted a survey of new graduates of B.C. schools of nursing who registered with the college for the first time. The survey showed that only 45% of the 2004 graduates worked in permanent full-time positions, which was a decline from the 63% in 2001 and only 69% liked their employment status and 75% of those in temporary positions weren’t satisfied with their status. Among the Canadian-trained RN workforce, Ontario graduates comprise more than one-quarter (26.6%) of the workforce in the northern territories, while Alberta graduates comprise 13.1% and British Columbia graduates comprise 12.4%.

Even though nursing is one of the top hottest jobs in Canada at the moment and the demand for it is very high but the supply is very low due to the difficulty of the job and the difficulty in acquiring the degree. By the end of the decade though, most provinces announced that the initial nursing educational requirement would be a four-year baccalaureate. The nursing profession in Ontario is also experiencing the destabilizing effect of inequities in salary and other working conditions between the hospital sector and the home health care and long-term care sectors. When positions come available in the hospital sector, nurses from home care and long-term care are attracted to move because of compensation disparities. This contributes to gaps in continuity of care and reduced morale within the nursing profession.

Deteriorating the situation, the number of licensed practical nurses decreased by 11% between 1991 and 2001. The decline affected just about every part of Canada, with British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta having the lowest overall ratio in 2001. has been estimated that the profession would lose more than 64,000 registered nurses between 2001 and 2006 because of retirement or premature death This number represented 28% of the ranks in 2001. British Columbia would be most affected with 32% likely to retire between 2001 and 2006; the Atlantic region would lose the least with 22. A gap of 35,000 exists between Ontario and British Columbia for nurses. In conclusion, the state of nursing is generally better in Ontario than British Columbia but generally nursing is towards the decline despite the fact that it is high in demand.

Critical Thinking…

Suppose that human resource planners estimated that, due to several technological innovations, your firm will need 25% fewer employees in three years. What actions would you take today?

The action that you will take should be planned carefully and correctly because if wrong decisions are made then it could affect the company to a great extent. Remember that making people redundant and recruiting again later when the market picks up is expensive. For example, if you fire the people who are old, that will first of all demotivate and demoralize the rest of your employees because they will think that you are going to fire them as well once they are old and secondly, if you fire your old workforce, you will be firing people with the most work experience and after that you will be left employees who are new and have little work experience. The first thing you have to do is to tell employees about the policy and what is happening to show that you are honest with them. To keep employee motivation, morale, and engagement high despite the impending downturn in our economy, it’s important for you to do things that help employees remain motivated, determined, and inspired during difficult times. One of the quickest steps to implement is to freeze hiring for all non-essential positions. This allows you to consolidate the employees you have to complete the work that is essential for serving the customers of your business. You can strategically continue to hire in areas where skills are difficult to find and in positions that will immediately generate revenue for the business. But, areas such as research and development may need to be placed on hold for the short term. Another component of a hiring freeze is to put filling positions that are vacated during the hiring freeze on hold if they are not essential.

If you have employees with whom you have a contract, you can only implement these cost reduction measures by renegotiating the contract. This is also true when employees are represented by a union. The business justification for a workforce reduction, should a workforce reduction become necessary, should be documented. This means that an employer can provide evidence that alternatives to layoffs were considered or tried. If litigation results from a workforce reduction, this documentation is beneficial to show a jury that business reasons were the only consideration in the decisions about workforce reduction.

Contract and temporary employees expect to be let go depending on the changing needs of the business. While this causes some turmoil in the lives of temporary employees, the employer does not have the same commitment to these employees as to regular employees. Temps provide a cushion of safety for the ongoing employment of regular employeees. To avoid employee layoffs, let all contract and temporary staff go.

In selecting people for redundancy, use objective criteria that can be applied in an unbiased way. This can include, for example, attendance records, disciplinary records, skills, experience or competence, work standards or aptitude to work. Ensure that the selection criteria are based on accurate records and are not discriminatory, directly or indirectly. If there is no trade union, set up a special employee forum or consultative body long enough before the redundancies occur to provide information and to consult. Ensure that you are not losing vital skills in encouraging voluntary redundancy. Reallocate jobs and responsibilities among the remaining workforce. Reorganize work spaces to eliminate gaps where people used to work: plan for a fresh start. Provide training for new jobs and new positions. Communicate and consult at all stages and pay particular attention to ensuring that line managers are fully involved in the change programme. Give positive messages focusing on the opportunities as well as the challenges ahead.

In conclusion, I think offering voluntary redundancy terms is a better way to start things off rather than just firing employees because redundancies can have a serious negative impact on morale and performance on the company if you force someone to leave but offering voluntary term is better.

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