There was a 500 person deficit between available jobs in Prince George and workers to fill them, according to a study from Business Development Canada.
Michael Denham, CEO and President of BDC was in Prince George today to speak with business owners and entrepreneurs about the lack of employees to fill the labour market.
“It has a negative effect on their growth and their pocketbooks,” said Denham told MyPGNow.com.
According to him, there are three things driving the issue; the economy is growing, people are leaving the workforce and the number of people entering the workforce isn’t as large as it needs to be.
“When you put all those things together and look ahead into the next seven years or so, we see basically zero percent growth in the working population in Canada while you’ve got literally tens of thousand of businesses trying to grow,” he said.
There are ways to work around the issue, according to the CEO, including hiring internationally and automating services so that there is less of a need for employees at all.