According to various survey reports, it is evident that nearly 50% of all businesses in Quebec see the recruitment of skilled workers as a top priority that they should be concerned about. A survey report conducted to about 300 Quebec businesses shows that almost half of them consider skilled workers recruitment to be a primary concern in the next few years. Further, according to a survey by Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, Approximately 25% of small and medium enterprises have an interest in keeping their existing staff members.
The highest number of businesses which is about of 83% of companies admitted that their focus is investing on employee training to try and counter the shortage of qualified workers that delays their day-to-day operations an overall long-term growth of their businesses. Quebec is the central province that has been hard hit by labor market shortage, and this has prevented businesses growth and full capacity operations especially the activities outside major cities.
Considering that Quebec skilled workers migration system is at the transition period, the province is trying to decide on how it will move from the old system to Quebec’s new expression of interest. Currently, Quebec is using an old first-come, first served policy and this is what most coalitions are pushing harder to avoid so that they can be able to reduce the number of immigrants. The Coalition Avenir Quebec is pushing its campaigns harder to ensure it delivers the promise of lowering the immigration rates by 20% 50,000 to 40000 newcomers in 2019. For the French-speaking provinces, the provincial officials suggest that before the numbers increase the numbers, there is a need for improvement on integration services in their territories. Also, CAQ through Bill 9 has a plan of cancelling 18000 existing immigration applications which are affecting 40,000 people including dependents.
