Immigration is an ‘important part’ of the solution to addressing labour shortages New Brunswick is facing according to former chief economist for the province and the newly-named chair of the Energy Solutions Corporation David Campbell.
Speaking at Port Days, Campbell says across the country labour market growth has been overwhelmingly through new immigrants.
Between 2010 and 2016 there has been a wave of new immigrants who have joined the national labour force to the tune of about 823,000. This compares to about 3300 for New Brunswick, which is seeing its workforce shrink.
Manitoba, Campbell says, has seen over 21-percent cumulative real GDP growth between 2007 and 2016, the highest in Canada, which is very heavily correlated to a massive rise in immigration in the province.
“Their province is only slightly larger but their immigrant numbers are five times more, and yes they’ve lost some through inter-provincial migration…at the end of the day that big boost in immigration has meant that a lot of them have stayed, a lot of industries are growing and there’s lots of benefits from attracting those immigrants,” Campbell says.
“One because they’re filling the jobs and two because they’re actually creating jobs for products and services in Manitoba because they are consumers as well.
So we need to be more focused on immigrants both as a source of labour and but also as a source of growth for the economy.”
Campbell says if we don’t increase the talent flowing into our province that’s going to be a real challenge to our sustained economic growth in the future.
Port Days also saw Arthur Irving of Irving Oil receiving a standing ovation as he was honoured with the Port Award of the Year. Irving was being recognised for his effort in seeing the port grow.
