Where do they expect to find workers?

Canadian university enrolment must increase by 1.3 per cent a year to produce enough skilled workers to meet demand and fill hundreds of thousands of jobs that will be left vacant this decade by retiring baby boomers, says a report released today.

"If this growth in new graduates is not reached, there will likely be labour shortages in knowledge-intensive occupations," the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada said in a statement while releasing its Enrolment Trends 2011. "In other words, there could be jobs available without qualified workers to fill them."

The report says all provinces are facing a decline in the 18-to-21 age cohort in coming years, although it's expected to be less severe in British Columbia than elsewhere in Canada. But at the same time, the number of visa students and new immigrants coming to Canada with a university degree -- which has almost tripled during the past decade -- will remain strong.

Source: The Vancouver Sun

I suppose that it should be noted that this is coming from an Association of Universities and Colleges, which is likely trying to gain more government funding and recruits. Yes, to me it seems that there's a reasonable case to be had here - one of the symptoms of population aging. The numbers of people entering the workforce goes down; the number of retirees goes up. How do you maintain a stable and workable system in such an environment.

The article seems to be arguing that the answer is "visa students and new immigrants", but how long is that likely to be the case? Phillip Longman has previously argued that the only way to use immigration to reverse a population aging would be to accept kids without their parents - a strategy which people are unlikely to agree to. And then consider that these immigrants will often want to have their parents immigrate as well - would it be just to disallow this? It's also one of the most common reasons given for returning noted by Business Week.

Similarly, given the current US deficit situation in combination with population aging trends, how likely is it to continue to be financially attractive to move to a more-Western country? And then, to add to this, China seems to be catching up in the area of research - as the Business Week article noted:

Despite the fact that they constitute only 12% of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52% of Silicon Valley's technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our global patents. They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce holding bachelor's degrees and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs.

Food for thought.