More than half of small businesses (roughly 55 percent) aren’t able to get the staff they need for their current operations or to meet new demand. Another 16 percent have met the challenge, but only at significant additional costs.
That’s the finding of a new report released this month by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
When looking for ways businesses have been trying to navigate the labour shortage in New Brunswick, the CFIB’s Louis-Philippe Gauthier argues higher wages are not the silver-bullet fix many believe.
“Simply put, the people aren’t there,” Gauthier said in an interview with Huddle.
Eighty-two percent of respondents to a recent CFIB survey said they increased wages to try to attract additional labor. Almost 50 percent say it hasn’t been helpful
While Gauthier says offering a higher wage has worked for some businesses, the real problem is a lack of applicants. Sixty percent of businesses that have raised wages say people are not applying to job postings at all. Many others say there are issues between what skills are needed for the job versus what skills the applicant has.
On top of it all, Gauthier says, there’s also a percentage of CFIB members that see a gap between what the expectations from the candidates are and what the position actually offers.
Gauthier says salary demands only make up a portion of what is on the table.
Despite a majority of businesses raising wages, the skills issue persists. That’s led many small businesses to try a number of alternatives, with temporary foreign workers and automation among the most successful.
Still, Gauthier says today’s labour shortages are not a pandemic-created issue. He notes the region had labour supply issues well before the pandemic hit, calling it “the result of our demographic reality that we’re living in New Brunswick and across Canada.”
One of the key points in CFIB’s report is the additional need for workers to be present in the workplace.
Looking to the province for answers
Seventy-one percent of New Brunswick’s small and medium-sized businesses say the provincial government is not doing enough to respond to New Brunswick’s labour shortage issues. In the report, 65 percent of small businesses said the provincial government needs to play a role in finding them new employees.
“It is clear small business owners are not only looking to the federal government, they also expect the provincial government to help,” mentioned Gauthier.
He added the province may need to address its communication with small businesses, after 47 percent of them said they were not aware of any government programs designed to help them.
Gauthier points to an entire provincial department, PETL (Post-Secondary Education Training and Labour) the government has rebranded for employers, as WorkingNB, to help with recruitment supports. However, almost half of the CFIB members polled still say they’re not aware of any provincial programs.
The WorkingNB website states any New Brunswick employer, regardless of their size, that has human resource challenges, including recruitment, retention and training, can reach out for support through a workforce consultant.
“There appears to be a communication issue that’s very, very clear there,” said Gauthier.
Gauthier says CFIB is urging all levels of government to address the labour shortage by further improving and streamlining the temporary foreign worker (TFW) program and immigration processes to help bring more workers into Canada faster.
CFIB contends even a short-term opening up of the TFW program would allow small businesses requiring a broader range of skills and wage levels to access a new source of skilled labour as they try to recover from the pandemic.
Some of the other necessary steps, according to CFIB’s report, are the stimulation of automation through programs or tax credits, providing tax relief for workers over 65 who wish to remain employed by making their hours tax-free, and implementing training programs for specific groups like young people, racialized minorities, or people with disabilities.
Tyler Mclean is a reporter for Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
