Nearly two dozen Canadian businesses, led by Bell Canada, have formed an alliance to drive more recruits into the IT industry and fill the more than 58,000 new jobs projected by the Conference Board of Canada for next year.
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Bell Canada officially launched the Canadian Coalition for IT Succession during a speech given Tuesday afternoon by Stephane Boisvert, who leads its enterprise group, at the Montreal Board of trade. Other members of the group include vendors such as IBM Canada and Avaya, but also large enterprise firms such as Hydro-Québec, TD Meloche Monnex and CN Rail.
The coalition is kicking off by commissioning a study of the IT labour market by the Conference Board of Canada, which estimates about 1,000 of the 58,000 technology jobs opening up over the next several years will be replacement positions.
Michael Bloom, the Conference Board’s executive director of strategic projects, said if these jobs are not filled they will have a negative economic impact amounting to $10.6 billion a year.
“The unemployment rate for IT workers is two per cent. The national average is six,” Bloom said. “When you consider some people are coming and going – there’s always people changing jobs – the unemployment rate is almost zero.”
Besides the research, Boisvert said the coalition will be coming up with a list of the IT jobs that have the biggest impact on the economy. He described the list as a repository of information that could be used to help show educational institutions what skills graduates need, and persuade government what jobs should be kept on-shore.
There may be a difference between the national figures and the town or city they’re in.
Michael Bloom, Conference Board,>TextThe full report from the Conference Board will be released in January, when the coalition will have another launch in Toronto. Boisvert said Bell was pleasantly surprised by the number of companies getting involved, and that these would soon be organized into executive and advisory councils to work on specific projects.
“We’re giving ourselves the next two months to get organized,” he said.
While labour market experts often talk about a “talent gap” within the IT sector, those seeking employment in IT have complained about the difficulty in finding a job despite months of searching.
“There may be a difference between the national figures and the town or city they’re in. They may be presenting qualifications that are no longer up to date. The skill requirements are changing,” Bloom said. “Overall, I guess the other point to make the people that do have jobs don’t call you. You’re getting a sample based on the disaffected.”
Boisvert said part of the problem may be that enterprises have to make a capital investment to upgrade their IT environment so that the kind of technology skills being taught in Canadian schools are applicable.
“If you go into legacy systems and see all these COBOL-type environments, this is not (the kind of expertise) that you’re getting out of universities today,” he said.
IT workers are important wealth-generators in Canada, Bloom added. Each IT worker contributes $120,000 annually to the economy. The Conference Board says there are 605,000 people working in IT jobs in the economy as a whole. About 250,000 of those are working for high-tech companies, but another 350,000 are in a different industry, probably as an IT manager or CIO.
