Engineers Canada Releases Labour Market Report

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Jun 25, 2015, 09:51 ET

OTTAWA, June 23, 2015 /CNW/ - The report, Engineering Labour Market in Canada: Projections to 2025, released today by Engineers Canada, provides province-level projections of supply and demand for engineers. The forecast is for more than 100,000 engineering job openings in Canada between now and 2025 as engineers retire and the economy continues to grow.

Canada is facing a skills gap as engineers in senior level positions retire or leave the workforce and their experience cannot be replaced by students and early career engineering professionals.

Interprovincial mobility of Canadian engineers and experienced internationally trained graduates will be two principal groups to potentially fill the positions left by retiring engineers.

Canadian higher education institutions will continue to play a critical role in training tomorrow's engineers. Post-secondary institutions are granting an increasing number of engineering degrees to Canadian and international students, creating new entrants to meet growing supply requirements.

"This report will help employers, governments, academic institutions and engineering regulators plan for the future requirements of the Canadian engineering labour market. Engineers and students will then have the information they need to determine how they will fit into that market," said Kim Allen, FCAE, FEC, P.Eng., chief executive officer of Engineers Canada. "This report demonstrates the continued importance of engineers to the Canadian economy and a bright future for engineering in Canada."

Highlights of the report include:

The supply, demand, and degree of difficulty getting engineers for the fourteen occupations recognized by Statistics Canada will vary according to economic conditions.
The report identifies the average age of engineers in each of the engineering disciplines. For example, the average age of civil engineers in British Columbia (50), and Manitoba (48), will create more job openings than there will be workers available as older engineers retire.
Retiring mechanical engineers are expected to contribute nearly 70% of mechanical engineering job openings over the next five years in Canada. This will increase to nearly 90% of total job openings from 2020 to 2025.
The recent decline in oil prices and the exchange rate, stronger U.S. growth, and increased investment will mean a stronger economy in some provinces over the medium-term, particularly for mining, manufacturing, and utilities.
As demand for engineers continues to be strong, inter-provincial mobility, Canadian engineering graduates, and immigration of engineers will be necessary to fill engineering positions.
Increased participation of underrepresented groups in engineering, such as women and Aboriginals, will be necessary to fill engineering positions in Canada over the next decade.

For more information or to download a copy of the report, visit Engineers Canada's www.engineerscanada.ca/labour-market-report

Engineers Canada is the national organization of the 12 engineering regulators that license the country's 280,000 members of the profession. Together, we work to advance the profession in the public interest. www.engineerscanada.ca

SOURCE Engineers Canada