New TD report discounts the skills mismatch in Canada

By Léo Charbonneau. I recently came across the phrase “skills shortage deniers.” I can’t find the exact reference now, but it was in an online comment to an article about the supposed skills shortage, or skills mismatch, in Canada. You’ve likely heard some of the numbers. The Conference Board of Canada claimed that Ontario alone was losing out on as much as $24.3 billion in economic activity because employers cannot find people with the skills they need. The Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters estimated that, by 2016, Canada will have 1.3 million jobs sitting vacant because there is no one with the skills to fill them. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, for its part, referred to a growing skills “crisis” and even the Prime Minister called the skills shortage one of Canada’s most pressing economic problems. More...