An growing older inhabitants and the stress of managing the pandemic noticed the variety of health-care employees in Canada swell by 204,000 between 2016 and 2021, in line with newly launched census numbers.

That is a 16.8 per cent enhance to the workforce over 5 years.

Even so, the variety of job vacancies for non-management-related health-care occupations stood at a report excessive in 2022, Statistics Canada mentioned.

The census mentioned governments are struggling to fill health-care positions as a result of almost half (45.6 per cent) of non-management jobs require a bachelor’s diploma or increased, and one other 22.8 per cent require two years of school or extra.

The remaining third of health-care occupations that don’t require a college or school schooling nonetheless require a mixture of school and participation in shorter-term coaching packages.

Regardless of these obstacles, Stats Can recommend there is a cause to hope the problem might be met. It says that between 2016 and 2021, the variety of working-age Canadians with a level in well being care rose by 24.1 per cent, in comparison with a 19.1 per cent enhance within the variety of Canadians with a college diploma.

Ageing inhabitants and well being care

The well being sector is coping with each an increase within the variety of aged folks searching for care and retirements. The census says {that a} report variety of working-age Canadians are actually nearing retirement, leaving employers typically with a a lot smaller pool to work with.

“Though the participation charges of every five-year age group from 55 to 74 elevated from 2016 to 2021,” the census mentioned, “they remained considerably decrease than the charges of these aged 25 to 54 and weren’t ample to offset the downward strain on labor provide ensuing from inhabitants growing older.”

The demographic make-up of Canada’s health-care workforce additionally doesn’t align with the make-up of the inhabitants as an entire, Stats Can say.

The sector is closely primarily based on ladies — greater than 80 per cent of Canada’s 1.5 million health-care employees are ladies.

It additionally is dependent upon folks of coloration, with nearly one third of employees coming from BIPOC communities, though BIPOC folks make up simply over 1 / 4 of the inhabitants.

Skilled, scientific and technical employees

The expansion in health-care employees, whereas important, was surpassed by the expansion of employees within the skilled, scientific and technical providers industries, which grew by 219,000 employees, or 17.3 per cent, over the identical interval.

Staff in these sectors — they embrace software program and internet builders, auditors, accountants, information scientists and cybersecurity specialists — are largely males, making up 57.1 per cent of the workforce.

Stats Can say that these industries additionally struggled to fill jobs, with vacancies reaching report highs by the top of 2021.

The push to fill positions is pissed off by the truth that nearly 60 per cent of non-managerial jobs in these industries require a bachelor’s diploma or increased, and one other third requires a school schooling or specialised coaching.

Commuting through the pandemic

The 2021 census additionally exhibits how commuting in Canada was affected by the pandemic lockdowns — when companies closed their doorways, employment fell by 3 million and one other 2.5 million Canadians misplaced most or all of their work hours.

In Might of 2021, there have been 2.8 million fewer Canadians commuting to work. About 1.7 million of these commuters stopped touring to work by automobile, one other million stopped utilizing public transit to get to work and 289,000 stopped strolling or biking to work.

Each province noticed declines in commuter site visitors. Ontario, which noticed a decline in automobile commuters of 20.2 per cent, and Alberta, which skilled a decline of 13.7 per cent, led the pack. Winnipeg had the smallest decline in automobile commuter site visitors at 7.6 per cent.

Ontario and Alberta additionally noticed the most important declines in commuting by public transit — a 56.1 per cent decline in Ontario and a 54.6 per cent drop in Alberta.

Staff unable to work at home usually lose their jobs; 323,000 fewer folks have been working within the lodging and meals service industries in 2021 than in 2016,

Many different employees shifted to work from home to be able to stay employed — 4.2 million folks labored from residence in Might of 2021, up from simply 1.3 million folks in 2016.

The dramatic decline in automobile commuting seems to have been non permanent. Stats Can report that by the spring of 2022, the variety of drivers and passengers touring to work by automobile, truck or van had gone again as much as 12.8 million, about the identical degree as 2016.

Stats Can estimate the variety of public transit commuters in 2021 at 1.2 million, properly beneath the two million taking public transit to work in 2016.

StatsCan studies 7.7 per cent of commuters took public transit to work in 2021. In the USA, solely 3 per cent of commuters have been taking public transit.

Canada leads G7 in college, school grads

The census additionally revealed that Canada has extra working-age school or college graduates than every other nation within the G7, due to extra adults learning for a level and the regular inflow of extremely educated immigrants.

Amongst working-age Canadians aged 25 to 64, some 57.5 per cent have a college or school diploma, the best within the G7.

That rating is due partly to the one in 4 working-age Canadians who’ve a school diploma or certificates qualification.

Relating to the share of working-age Canadians with a college diploma, nonetheless, Canada sits in fourth place within the G7 at 32.9 per cent after the UK, at 41.3 per cent, the USA at 39.5 per cent and Japan at 34.2 per cent.

The census additionally says that whereas the inhabitants is relatively well-educated, failing to acknowledge the {qualifications} of employees educated overseas is “leaving expertise on the desk.”

Different census highlights

• Progress in skilled, scientific and technical providers employment outpaced all different industries, with 1.5 million employed in 2021.
• The labor participation price general fell from 65.2 per cent in 2016 to 63.7 per cent in 2021 as extra child boomers retired,
• Amongst racialized teams, participation charges went up, particularly for Korean and West Asian Canadians.
• The labor participation price amongst First Nations fell as job progress lagged behind inhabitants will increase.
• A report 1.3 million new immigrants got here to Canada, boosting labor market progress.
• In Might 2021, there have been 4.2 million folks working at residence, up from 1.3 million in 2016.
• The variety of Canadians touring to work by automobile, truck or van declined by 1.7 million from 5 years earlier to succeed in 11 million in Might 2021.
• There have been 245,000 fewer Canadians commuting for a minimum of 60 minutes, in comparison with Might 2016.
• The variety of folks often taking public transit to work fell from two million in 2016 to 1 million in Might 2021.