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I think it's untrue that there is a labour shortage.  
 
Anyone else think so?

It’s not a labour shortage so much as a choice being made by able bodied people to not work for wages that they believe aren’t fair. Gone are the days of working your way up It seems.

gone are the days of being exploited by predatory employers.

More like gone are the days when people were prepared to do an honest days hard work for an honest wage and start at the bottom and work their way up.

That is how things used to be fifty years ago. Has not been that way for decades here in Canada. Partly because of changes in the work force, as well as employers. Slogans from the past that are not relevant any more, may sound catchy, but that's about as far as it goes.

And looks like there is a shortage, if help wanted adds are any indication. Hard to find bodies in many industries.

Employers are also extra picky these days.  
 
Many ads on Indeed fit right into what I do right now, but they are asking for bachelors degrees. I have a high school degree and have been at my job for over a decade, but the experience doesn't count unless I have "proper schooling".  
 
My spouse has spent months applying places and has finally landed an interview.  
 
Even the movie theater wanted a video cover letter on why you wanted to work there.

Yes there is a shortage of capable people to do quality work. Kids coming outta high school figure that they deserve $25-30 a hour having no experience at all. Or like farmer George said don’t figure they need to start at ground level. But that all being said us as parents of the next generation have done it to ourselves giving kids everything that they want instead of making them work for it.

The lack of staff isn’t always because people choose not to work (in this day and age, who is choosing not to work anyways?? The govt doesn’t pay for everything) but some of the blame is on the employers. Thanks to Covid, they realized they could operate with less staff and make more money. The unfortunate part is that some employees are now being expected to carry that extra workload for no extra incentive. This in turn makes people not want to work for that company and then the bosses want to say it’s because no one has work ethic anymore (which some def don’t but not all)

I worked cr*p jobs for cr*p wages 25-30 years ago, and had employers that bordered on abusive. I had customers sexually harass me and my boss would just laugh it off. I had stuff happen to me that was, in retrospect, probably against labour code. I was young and didn't know better. I didn't think I had a choice.  
 
I'm so relieved people now have more awareness that they have a choice. The pandemic finally pushed a lot of boomers to retire, and now there's not enough bodies to fill a lot of jobs. People have options.

People shouldn't have to work three jobs for pennies just to try and cover basic necessities. An "honest day's work" doesn't get you anywhere now, and the previous generation needs to stop pretending it does.

Not a boomer, a millennial that worked years from sweeping the floor moving up to senior technician and shop foreman. Now self employed.  
Don’t ever tell me that you can’t start at the bottom and move up and progress with hard work and commitment.  
The very notion of entitlement and walking into a high paid position without experience and graft is pure fairytales, and the problem is that people believe in those fairytales and become detached from reality, that is why so many of the workforce are now basically unemployable.  
They are not prepared or qualified to work.  
 
Edited by Farmergeorge, 2023-03-01 22:52:32

1) Covid taught people that they were expandable especially front line workers forced to either vaccinate or be tested unnecessarily or don’t work. So people made a choice to go else where and so skilled professionals were lost.  
2) cost of living verses cost to work- even being educated and skilled doesn’t give you a living wage.  
3) social math unfortunately places have decided that they have to keep xx% open for minorities only but unfortunately being a minority means there isn’t enough to go around. Not saying that places shouldn’t be inclusive: they absolutely should be, but math doesn’t add up. And it can keep people who want to succeed and get a higher education from doing so. Also social math- what is better a non-minority doctor with higher grades, skills, and recommendations or a minority with lower grades, skills etc ? It’s not always a race thing it’s an ability to do a good job.  
4) Covid also burnt out professionals in many industries. Worry over health and safety. Working short because people couldn’t be educated, or replaced, or having less staff because of social distancing or sickness.  
There are probably so many other reasons but those are the main ones I notice.

“what is better a non-minority doctor with higher grades, skills, and recommendations or a minority with lower grades, skills etc ? It’s not always a race thing it’s an ability to do a good job”  
 
sooo misinformed it’s crazy…. I have worked in health care for YEARS, and I can honestly say that with the amount of testing that immigrants go through to practice in this country is intense…. Meanwhile the amount of medical professionals that have been pushed through or grandfathered into programs, even with failing them, from this country, is actually kind of scary……. I would take a minority doctor any day, because I know for a fact that there is NO WAY they would have gotten the job if not qualitied 10x over, but a non-minority doctor doesn’t have to go through the same process, and thus many that are not so good , have not been weeded out. Anyone of minority may understand what I am saying to be true, though I know that non-minority people will dispute such a statement. Have we all forgotten “Dr. Death?” LOL noooo way a non-minority would have gotten away with that for as long as he did. Fact.

Your absolutely correct. The pendulum has swung in the favor of the employee, after being in the favor of the employer for decades.

Requirements for so many jobs. I wouldn't even qualify for the job I left 5 years ago, even though I worked there for years and was good at the job. Now they would require a university degree that I don't have-not that I would go back.  
 
Recently hired someone for another position. In spite of a fancy degree the person didn't know anything about the job duties and had no Interest in learning-absolutely no common sense at all and not much for people skills. Not a good fit at all. Some employers put too much emphasis on school credentials and not enough on life/job experience-that results in the wrong applicants getting hired, then they don't stay (whether they quit or get let go) and word gets out that "no one wants to work". The problem isn't people not wanting to work, the problem is businesses hiring the wring kind of candidates after screening out their best ones.

I never said you were a boomer, but you have boomer mentality, which is to say you're trying to live in the past. If you think working hard matters for anything in most places now, you're delusional.  
 
Sure, working hard can make a difference under the right circumstances, but for most, it just means they end up still poor, but worked to the bone and barely able to function. I repeat, get a damn grip and quit projecting the 50s mentality into the modern world where it doesn't work.

A bad attitude like that is why people don’t get hired or retained. The fact is that employers don’t want or need entitled, poorly tempered or poorly skilled employees because they are not productive.  
We’re getting to a point where a lot of jobs will soon be replaced by automation . I’m not saying that’s a good thing but it’s sure going to make life easier for employers.  
You need to embrace the future rather than the past!  
 
Edited by Farmergeorge, 2023-03-02 22:37:47

I wouldn't worry about some of the others in this thread Farmer George. As a 30 something guy who worked my way up within the same company from almost minimum wage to management it can be done and the opportunities still exist. The attitudes of some of the other posters are exactly what prevents them from advancing in a career. There is many opportunities however many people are above the sometimes dirty or manual labour type positions. These same people are the ones who apply for positions with cover letters written for the wrong company, spelling mistakes all over the resume, emails like potsmoker69@hotmail.com and job experiences that span months at each company instead of years. You would also be amazed at how many people have an outdated phone number so they can't even be contacted. These are the people that post on this site complaining about how hard it is to get hired in a market where the majority of companies are looking to hire. These are also the same people that will never own a home and claim landlords are the devil and its unfair that they need to pay rent in full and on time or risk eviction. The same people who prioritize a new tattoo over rent or the new playstation or other electronic device. The same people who start a new job and make it known how hard up they are for money but ask for friday off the first week, or call in "sick" monday morning.  
 
They will deny all this however. I have seen it time and time again.

Well said "bean".

And well said "bean". So true. And, also the people who have furthered their education and get jobs where their education doesn't apply, only to work a bit and then quit coz it's too hard or wasn't what they expected. And, then just because some people haven't furthered their education but have years of experience are held back. This happens all the time!

Perfectly said!

business owner I have seen the things you are referring to as well. I have seen cycles of great employees, as well as bad ones over the decades. I am sure you will see lots more of both as you are still fairly young. It would be interesting to hear how your fellow co-workers would describe you in the same context as your describing them. As I am sure you know, situations can appear differently, depending on your perspective, and actual knowledge of the situation. Sometimes giving, and getting the benefit of the doubt, can go a long way.

One of my relatives has worked his way up to shift management at a chain restaurant -$2.00 over other workers - still not full time - lots of worries

Bean said is right on

Once again, I come into this kind of discussion. And once again, those with outdated and seemingly unchangeable attitudes make me laugh. Apparently, it is easy to see entitlement in the downtrodden next gens when one grew up in an age of the stars aligning for a comfortable and fairly prosperous life being not all that difficult.  
 
I could talk about the older gents I know that find things to grievance about (insert Trudeau rant HERE!!) despite paying off and retiring in (often times, wrecking) homes that are now paid off free and clear. But I won't.  
 
I will say this, though. Up until very recently, I have NEVER had what one could call a decent employer. Yes yes work is work, I didn't walk in expecting $50 an hour straight out of high school, and nor do my many younger co-workers. Where you got that notion baffles me, though I can take a wild guess. But I'm not going there either LOL.  
 
Let me describe the differences as I subjectively see them between decent and not so decent:  
 
1.) I don't need to worry about not getting paid for staying a little late and tidying up after other peoples laziness. I don't like passing problems along to someone else who doesn't have the time to begin with.  
 
Really, it's not something I ever have to think about because people generally do what has to be done. What a concept.  
 
2.) Supiriors and Managers do not need to talk down to people in positions below them. Corrective actions have to happen from time to time, but people are much less likely to hide errors that cost $$ (whatever the amount) if there is an incentive of honest integrity.  
 
This bodes particularly well in customer service-oriented sectors since staff may be getting it from all angles. Which will only drive up burnout and/or turnover. Which costs even more $$.  
 
3.) If you are in an environment that seemingly "suddenly" has hushed talks about unionization, chances are that the "suddenly" is just because people that should have been paying attention to things were not.  
And if an employer's response to that is vindictiveness over self-reflection ("where did we go wrong? How can we improve our communication to make our employees feel more i:ncluded and valued?"), then good luck ever seeing the end of the era of "People don't want to work anymore!".  
 
In a sense, you aren't wrong.  
 
Edited by Simonwalcal, 2023-03-04 11:53:52

We have massive staff shortages in all hospitals and healthcare in the province.  
Essentially all the courthouses are short staffed in the province.  
Schools have been having difficulty hiring EA's or other support staff for years.  
We have a massive housing shortage in the country and not enough skilled manual labour to build quickly enough.  
Nobody wants to join the military - the reserves are scant.  
Airlines have massive shortages for pilots as well.  
We're not really involved with any leading industries so obviously there's a massive labour shortage there.  
That's just off the top of my head - it seems like most of you live in a very nice bubble that skews the outside world or you're off floating in a different world entirely.  
 
If you're talking about low skilled jobs then there's no shortage there. Canada has become a nation of indebted consumers and we will always have enough supply of low skilled labour to meet the demand we have of having underpaid foreigners sling us cheap coffee (especially if Blackrock gets their way). We will likely also always have the supply of morons who believe that spending a decade doing meaningless minimum wage jobs for somebody else is just how life works and they'll unironically take pride in how they managed to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, which will dig the hole deeper for Canadians.  
 
If you want to pretend that we live in a capitalist society then lets put it this way - nobody is rewarded monetarily nowadays for being a good person or trying hard - meanwhile people ARE being rewarded monetarily for being controversial dipshits, for increasing prices under the guise of inflation, for controlling our telecom industries, for already having enough money to play around with the stock market all day, by having a close relationship with Trudeau so he can give you government contracts for doing nothing... i mean, you'd have to be a chump to play the labour exchange game honestly anymore so yeah, I do think we have a labour shortage - the quality of labour is worsening over time and the quantity in many areas is not close to being enough. Additionally, if you're smart and grew up here - all signs suggest to leave for better pay or work/life balance. Canada in 10 years is screwed lol.  
 
It all starts with education and how poorly this nation has failed in that regard. We're a first world nation of naive dummies  
 
Edited by BdnOlley, 2023-03-04 12:45:10

As someone who grew up in another country and immigrated to Canada after living and working through major economic downturns and recessions when millions were unemployed I can tell you that the opportunities and protections for employees here are much better than abroad. We didn’t receive any employee benefits, it didn’t exist and you were grateful to have work.  
Canadians generally expect and enjoy a much higher standard of living and recreation than their foreign counterparts.  
Unfortunately the expectation of that higher living standard has led to many people being unwilling to fulfill or commit to the huge number of desirable positions available because they think that they are above it.

As somebody who has been doing a lot of hiring lately, I can understand why some people start to feel like they deserve better. There are a lot of bad employers out there. I hear lots of stories about mandatory unpaid overtime, pressuring against making WCB claims, and unsafe working conditions.  
 
We invest in our staff, give them training opportunities, and room to grow. We definitely don't get many people who think they are above working for us. They're just tired of being treated like trash.  
 
Edited by TheBrofessor, 2023-03-04 14:45:21

.  
Posted by TheBrofessor, 3/4/2023 2:45:04 PM  
As somebody who has been doing a lot of hiring lately, I can understand why some people start to feel like they deserve better. There are a lot of bad employers out there. I hear lots of stories about mandatory unpaid overtime, pressuring against making WCB claims, and unsafe working conditions.  
 
We invest in our staff, give them training opportunities, and room to grow. We definitely don't get many people who think they are above working for us. They're just tired of being treated like trash.  
 
 
Bingo