A new report estimates the city and surrounding region is missing out on potentially hundreds of millions in economic benefit due to shortages in skilled labour.
Economic Development Regina (EDR), in a new state of labour report issued this month, estimates that as of mid-2023, approximately 4,400 job vacancies exist in and around the city equating to an estimated $428 million in unrealized employment income and $54 million in unrealized tax revenue annually, if left unfilled.
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“That is quite a big number,” said EDR CEO Chris Lane.
The report attributed this to a “noticeable gap” between the needs of employers, the local job market and the skills of the current workforce, both employed and searching.
Regina’s unemployment-to-vacancy ratio sits nearly three times above the national average, with four people available for every job vacancy on the market.
Lane calls this “concerning,” in a region with continuing economic growth adding jobs, but struggling with competition, interprovincial migration and skills mismatching inside the labour pool.
He said the province is “in a period of successive peaks” in terms of population and job growth, but also in competition for skilled workers.
“Regina isn’t operating in a vacuum that way. Almost every other major centre is undergoing a similar phenomenon,” he said.
The report speculates if Regina’s economy continues on its current path, more than 62,000 new jobs will be created by 2026. Provincially, that number is estimated at 135,000.
Around 10,000 more people are working than last fall, with the local employment rate at 65 per cent, or 148,000 people, this June.
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Construction and retail employment continue to see the most numbers of vacancies, following a three-year trend. Both sectors are experiencing significant shortages, alongside health care.
Retail tops sector comparisons for 2022 and 2023, marking an estimated 3,500 job vacancies at the end of last year.
More than a third of Canadian businesses say filling vacancies is a challenge and recruiting skilled employees is expected to be a continued obstacle in 2024, per Statistics Canada.
Saskatchewan businesses recently surveyed by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business marked shortages of skilled workers as their top constraint on growth, unskilled workers a close second.
Immigration has helped meet labour supply, helping fill year-over-year employment growth which saw 1,167 new positions added in Regina last year. Approximately 60 per cent of the entire province’s net migration between 2016 and 2020 settled in or around Regina, according to the report.
But, on the horizon are projects like the Cargill and Viterra canola crush facilities, and the new joint agriculture complex from FCL and AGT Foods. While expected to create a job boom and deliver significant economic return, these megaprojects are also likely to add to the pressures on Regina’s available workforce, said Lane.
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“In some ways, it’s a good problem to have, because you never want to not have those projects happening in your community,” he said.
“We’re just having it at a time where there’s a competition for labour, specifically in those trades like construction and transport.”
Successful solutions will mean combining focus on pushing attraction, retention and training initiatives while also ensuring all available labour pools are activated, said Lane.
Leveraging immigration volumes and finding ways to improve quality of life in Regina are also suggested in EDR’s report.
“This gap is large enough where you need all of those things to be working, not just immigration or not just re-skilling,” Lane said.
“I don’t think (the growth) is going to stop, and so it’s really important to get in front of it now.”
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