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March 14, 2008 - NEWS RELEASE
Immigration Reform Desperately Needed to Deal with Declining Labour Productivity
Vancouver, B.C. – Today, Statistics Canada released a fourth quarter report that showed a shocking decline of almost a full percentage point (0.8%) in labour productivity.
"These numbers should set off alarm bells for government and businesses,” said Philip Hochstein, President of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association. "Our nearest competitors in the United States saw labour productivity grow at almost four times the rate as Canada did in 2007.”
“The sharp decline in our labour productivity adds costs to all construction and exacerbates the housing affordability crisis in BC by driving up the amount of labour needed to build,” added Hochstein.
“The solution is clearly to bring in more skilled immigrants, but we just haven’t admitted as a country how serious the current and future skill shortages are,” said Hochstein. “We urgently need to recast immigration as economic rather than social policy.”
“Many of our competitors throughout the world are actively recruiting young skilled workers, while Canada clings to a gatekeeper mentality that was created decades ago during completely different economic and demographic times. BC needs more skilled labour and the federal government can make that happen through changes to immigration policy,” concluded Hochstein.
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For more information, please contact:
Philip Hochstein, ICBA President
Office: 604.298.7795
Cell: 604.561.9402
Email: philip@icba.ca
Gord Stewart , ICBA Vice President
Office: 604.298.7795
Cell: 604.561.9403
Email: gord@icba.ca
| ICBA is the voice of BC's construction industry. For further information, or if you have any questions or comments regarding this article, please contact ICBA. |
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