Many workers who planned to retire before the COVID-19 pandemic struck may have put off their plans, but that doesn’t mean that they would remain in the workforce for long.
A study conducted by the Conference Board of Canada found that above 20 percent of the Canadian workforce could retire by 2026.
This would bring a mass exodus in all industries, according to Lauren Florko’s report, Languishing and the Great Attrition.
The situation is extra alarming to the construction and health care industries.
Florko said that the health care industry is currently volatile, the reason why some health care workers postponed their retirement to help with the current COVID scare.
Some workers even returned to work from their retirement.
However, this is only expected to last as long as the pandemic lingers.
While people postponing their retirement has helped various industries, Florko warns of the possibility of getting overworked, leading to massive burnout.
This would cause the potential mass exodus that could be inevitable given the workload of those who chose to continue working in Canada.
The Ontario Ministry of Health has been trying to prepare for any possibilities.
Its provincial government plans to add 6,000 health care workers before March ends, and currently, it has already added 6,700 workers into its system.
Aside from that, the government has programs to encourage more people to enroll in nursing and has invested $35 million for the venture.
Meanwhile, the manufacturing and construction industries are already suffering from the effects of the labor crisis.
About 50,000 Canadian jobs in the manufacturing sectors in Quebec and Ontario were unfilled even before the mass exodus.
Employers are already finding it challenging to find skilled tradespeople in the construction industry, including concrete pourers and bricklayers.
If this continues, residential projects will fall short of their completion dates, which might cause a boom in the prices of real estate properties.
In order to address the country’s worker shortage, the government is increasing the Canadian immigration target level for 2022 to a record 411,000 new permanent residents, with most of these spots reserved for skilled immigrants and their families.
Canadian immigration accounts for most of the country’s population growth and the majority of new jobs in Canada are also being filled by skilled foreign workers.
This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.
