'Not enough applicants:' Waterloo region worker retention plan headed to council

Regional councillors are set to discuss a plan to spend up to $400,000 on a talent plan to attract, retain and reskill workers both for private businesses and public service.

A report going before councillors during an economic development committee meeting Tuesday morning says the region is "currently facing major workforce shortages." Pre-COVID, the region saw workforce shortages in the tech industry and manufacturing.

"These shortages are now being felt across all industry sectors," the report says.

It says the shortages need to be addressed because it can cause business interruptions, limit growth and "erode the quality of living" for people in the community.

A survey of 100 stakeholders done for the Waterloo Wellington Dufferin Workforce Planning Board between February and March of this year showed 77.8 per cent of surveyed employers had positions "they found hard to fill," which was a significant rise from 62 per cent who responded the same way in 2019.

"'Not enough applicants' remains the number one reason for hard-to-fill positions," the report said.

176,000 new jobs by 2051

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted local businesses, but regional Coun. Helen Jowett said the plan is for this report to look beyond post-COVID into how to manage as older workers and so-called baby boomers are set to retire.

"We're forecasting 176,000 new jobs by 2051 and a lot of intelligent co-ordination and collaboration has to go into that realization," Jowett said.

"We need to get really good at upskilling, reskilling, inviting people to learn about disciplines that maybe they otherwise wouldn't know about. We need to look at our youth and invest in them so that … they're more likely to stay here because it's highly competitive."

The report noted that in June, the local unemployment rate was 4.6 per cent, slightly below the national rate of 4.9 per cent that month.

Howett said she can understand how people might be confused about the lack of workers in the region. After all, during the pandemic, there was high demand for housing in Waterloo region. People are drawn to the region because of amenities here such as post-secondary education options, transit services and the growing airport, she said.

"We have to remain competitive because things are a lot more global now and because talent can work remotely more now, it makes us vulnerable to more competitive labour market forces," she said, adding this isn't just an issue for the cities in the region, but the township employers are feeling significant impacts as well.

"We want to be aware of that and play a role in supporting business in attraction and retention by using all of the assets we already have and ramping them up," she said.

Regional council has previously approved $3 million over two years to help businesses through the pandemic. That is funded 100 per cent by the province's safe restart funding. The $400,000 for the talent plan would come from that same funding.