Regional breakdowns for CERIC’s Environics National Business Survey

What region of Canada is being hit hardest by skills shortages? Where are employee referrals the most common recruitment practice? In what part of the country are employers least likely to invest in staff training? Find out the answers to these questions and more in newly released regional breakdowns of CERIC’s National Business Survey that explore the state of career development in the Canadian workplace.

CERIC recently commissioned Environics Research Group to survey 500 employers of small, medium and large scale enterprises to surface their views on issues facing Canadian businesses in general, labour needs, the importance of soft skills, approaches toward employee recruitment, training and career management. A summary of findings was released at Cannexus14 and a presentation of the national results is also accessible. CERIC is now making available regional breakdowns of the survey findings that show how employers in British Columbia, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces share some challenges but also have different approaches in addressing skills gaps.

For instance, a much higher proportion of those in Ontario (38%) believe it is “easy” or “somewhat easy” to find the right people with appropriate skillsets to fill vacant positions than is the case in the other regions of Canada (B.C. 22%, Prairies 26%, Quebec 21% and Atlantic Canada 25%).

The regional breakdowns also indicate that tapping into employee referrals is the most common practice in B.C., Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada to find skilled employees while employers in the Prairies are more likely to resort to offering training and advancement to lower-level employees.

Also notable is the fact that finding people with adequate soft skills seems to be most difficult in Ontario compared to the other regions. Almost three quarters (73%) stated it was “somewhat difficult” or “difficult” in the former while the average was nearly 10 percentage points lower across the other regions (64%).

Furthermore, a greater majority of all regions were open to providing training for new employees (82% state they are “willing” or “somewhat willing”) yet employers in the Prairies and Ontario were by far the most concerned about potentially losing an employee they had invested in training (77% and 76% compare to 61% in B.C., 48% in Quebec and 45% in Atlantic Canada).