Can Bangladesh benefit from Canada’s 10 lakh job vacancies?

Recent reports of Canada's high job vacancy rate and its plan to provide permanent residency to a huge number of people appear to be a good opportunity for Bangladesh to supply manpower to the North American country.

However, Bangladesh lacks skilled workers, the main recipients of permanent residency in Canada.

People working in the migration sector said Bangladesh needs to intensify its programmes to develop skilled workers in order to be able to utilise such opportunities.

The sectors with high demand for workers in Canada are healthcare, accommodation, food services, construction, retail trade, transportation, warehousing, and educational services.

The high job vacancy rate, combined with the low unemployment rate outlined by the recent Labour Force Survey in Canada, points to a growing labour shortage in several sectors and an increased need for immigration in the North American country as its workforce reaches retirement age, report international media.

The Canadian immigration news website CIC News said the country's 90 lakh baby boomers are slated to reach retirement age this decade. Meanwhile, the fertility rate decreased to a record low of 1.4 children per woman in 2020. Currently, there are around 10 lakh job vacancies, according to the Labour Force Survey.

Canada is planning to invite over 4.30 lakh permanent residents from abroad in 2022 and over 4.50 lakh in 2024.

Express Entry – an application management system and the most popular pathway for skilled workers to enter Canada – assesses a candidate's qualifications and ranks them alongside other candidates.

Candidates are ranked on the basis of the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS). Once Express Entry candidates self-evaluate if they are eligible for permanent residency and upload their profiles on the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) website, they will be given a number score known as a CRS score.

"This score is based on factors such as education, language ability, work experience and other human capital factors such as age. The higher the CRS score, the more likely a candidate will receive an invitation to apply (ITA) for permanent residency," Md Tazul Islam, Chief Executive Officer of the immigration consultancy firm Visa Aid told TBS.

"There are many Bangladeshis willing to immigrate to Canada with permanent residency, but most of them lack the required qualifications. At least 15 migration aspirants came to our firm in the last month, but none of them had sufficient qualifications for applying," he added.

"Canada is giving permanent residency to a lot of skilled people to sustain their economy. Most of these opportunities are being taken by people from China and India," Rajibul Rajib, a Bangladeshi working in a government service sector in Richmond, Canada told TBS over phone.

"Bangladeshis are not able to avail this opportunity easily due to various tough conditions, including high scores in IELTS. But if you come to the country as a student, it is relatively easy to get permanent residency.

"Students get work permits for two to three years. One can apply for permanent residency as skilled manpower after working for only one year," he added.

Mentioning that the number of students from Bangladesh is comparatively low in Canada, Rajibul said, "It is very easy to get an education loan in India, which is very difficult in Bangladesh. The government should look into this. Many of our students can go to Canada if getting a student loan is made easier."

Vacancies rising in Canada's healthcare sector

According to the Labour Force Survey, the job vacancy rate in the healthcare and social services sectors has risen sharply to 143,000 vacancies, or 6.1%.

According to Statistics Canada, more than one in five nurses worked paid overtime hours in July this year, the highest level since comparable data became available in 1997.

The Job Vacancy and Wage Survey reported 23,620 vacant nursing positions in Canada in the first quarter of 2022.

Bangladesh has recently started sending health staff in Kuwait and already sent 1,000 nurses to the gulf state. The authorities now should take proper initiative to send workers to the Canadian health sector, said experts.

"Bangladesh currently sends skilled workers like nurses to different countries on a very small scale. If we can supply health workers to developed countries, including Canada, then the flow of remittances will increase a lot," Dr Tasneem Siddiqui, founding chair, Refugee and Migratory Movement Research Unit, told TBS.

Labour shortages inflate in industries

Both Nova Scotia and Manitoba provinces in Canada had job vacancy rates of over 10% in May, largely within the accommodation and food services sector which reported 161,000 job vacancies.

This is the thirteenth month in a row that accommodation and food services have had the highest number of vacancies.

There was also a significant decrease in jobs in construction across all industries in the sector. Over 17,500 jobs were lost in May, marking the first decrease since July 2021.

Most construction jobs were lost in Ontario, accounting for nearly two thirds of the decline in employment.

Ontario also reported the country's largest decrease in employment in the retail trade sector.

Job vacancies have also reached a record high in professional, scientific and technical services; transportation and warehousing; finance and insurance, entertainment and recreation; and real estate.