Strengthen your skilled talent

It would be difficult to find a business that doesn’t rely on digital technology to operate. Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, blockchain and digital currencies, employee resource management and workplace automation make digital technology central to business operations of all sizes, across industries and sectors. Technology innovations are critical to the competitiveness of retail, healthcare, government services and manufacturing, elevating the demand for highly-skilled digital workers. This has led to an interesting paradox for Canadian employers. On the one hand, they need the cross-functional workforce described above. At the same time, access to highly-skilled and sometimes highly-specialized workers trained in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) has become a critical component of business competitiveness within Canada and internationally.

Canada boasts a world-class information and communications technology (ICT) sector worth an estimated $74 billion annually.²⁰ Canada’s record at producing IT talent is also impressive. We have top universities and colleges churning out engineers, designers and information systems architects. Every year, around 29,000 ICT graduates enter the workforce. But there are not enough specialized IT workers to meet demand.

“I think we’re always going to outstrip supply with our demand,” says Jayson Hilchie, President and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association of Canada. “We’re seeing more and more international investments like Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, Shopify and Mozilla Corporation creating these tech hotbeds. As long as Canada is an attractive place to do business, we’re all going after the same skillset.”

In its latest outlook released April 2017, the Information Communication and Technology Council (ICTC) anticipates that by 2021 “around 216,000 critical digital talent positions will need to be filled in Canada.”²¹

Canadian firms are already demonstrating their inability to find skilled workers to fill crucial roles. A spring 2016 survey conducted by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) and the Strategic Counsel found:

• 40% of IT leaders say their organizations had experienced difficulty hiring IT professionals within the previous 12 months.

• Half of IT hiring managers say they’ve left positions unfilled due to lack of skilled candidates.²²

At the Canadian Internet Forum, hosted by CIRA in June 2016, panelists presented further evidence predicting challenges in IT recruitment.

• There continues to be an IT skills mismatch. Graduates entering the workforce don’t have the right skills to do the jobs required of them. Skills learned in college are often redundant within six months of work.
• There is a lack of on-the-job training to help mature workers keep their technology skills up-to-date.
• Technology is evolving so rapidly that the demand for IT specialists can’t keep up with the supply.²³

In order to meet future needs, the ICTC says Canada needs to be producing 43,000 new tech workers annually.²⁴

3.2.1 The shortage may be hurting Canadian small and medium-sized businesses the most

It’s estimated 58% of small and medium-sized companies have failed to adopt technology that would boost their competitiveness because they lack the skilled talent to implement it.²⁵ A 2016 GoDaddy and Reddit survey of 4,000 Canadian microbusinesses (fewer than five employees), discovered 59% did not have a website.²⁶ The adoption of information technology is essential for improving productivity, efficiency and competitiveness. Yet, the more than 100,000 micro businesses that could most use the boost are being left behind. This is very likely due to lack of access to skilled IT professionals to implement the technology, as many specialists flock to big-paying firms in the ICT industry.

Hilchie and his industry counterparts have been at the forefront of identifying solutions to Canada’s digital skills shortage. In 2017, there were an estimated 596 active video game studios in Canada, contributing $3.7 billion to GDP annually.

As of 2015, the ICTC notes more than 877,470 workers were employed in an ICT role in Canada. The entertainment software crowd may represent a small part of that, but Hilchie sees his industry sitting “clearly at the centre of innovation.”

“With 21,700 full-time direct employees and 19,000 jobs indirectly employed, the video game industry here supports 40,000 jobs and generates approximately $3.7 billion in GDP,” says Hilchie. “It’s not as large as the IT sector as a whole, but it’s continuing to grow at a steady pace, particularly with the surge of interest and capabilities in virtual reality.”

The average salary for someone in entertainment software across all seniority levels is just over $77,000. The industry grew 31% between 2013 and 2016, with 90% of its output export-driven.

Moreover, Canada’s video game industry is central to innovative new technologies in health care, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles (AVs).

“For AVs, our industry is developing graphics processors used to drive data analytics,” Hilchie explains. “The visualization and graphics interfaces are all driven by companies that were at one time video game companies. In health care rehabilitation, surgical training and learning are done through video game technology. Video games also form the underpinnings of AI. Many are utilizing deep learning and adapting through playing video games.”

Recognizing the talent crisis, the entertainment software association has been at the forefront of successful lobbying efforts to improve availability of digital talent from across the globe.

3.4.1 Canada Global Skills Strategy

In June 2017, Canada revamped its temporary foreign workers program to make it easier for employers to hire skilled digital workers from other countries. The Global Talent Streamaddresses the shortage of in-demand digital talent.

“We lobbied heavily for this immigration reform,” says Hilchie. “This will allow our industry to source people from all over the world that we can’t find at home because the demand is so fierce.”

One of the biggest benefits of the new program, says Hilchie, is reduced processing times. Whereas it used to take six months or more to fill a critical IT position on a short-term basis, Canadian firms can now bring in skilled international candidates in less than a month.

Under the new guidelines, employers can apply for a referral by a Government of Canada industry partner to hire “unique and specialized talent” to one of two innovation talent streams. International candidates hired through the innovation Global Talent Stream A must have:

• Advanced knowledge of the industry;
• Advanced degree in an area of specialization of interest to the employer; and/or
• Minimum of five years of experience in the field of specialized experience; and
• A highly paid position with a salary of usually $80,000 or more.

Global Talent Stream B identifies a number of professional roles employers can fill with international talent, providing they meet defined minimum salary requirements. They include:

• Computer and Information Systems managers
• Computer engineers
• Information systems analysts and consultants
• Database analysts and data administrators
• Software engineers and designers
• Web designers and developers
• Electrical and electronics engineering technologists and technicians
• Information systems testing technicians
• Producer, technical, creative and artistic director and project manager – Visual effects and video game
• Digital media designers

3.4.2 Canada’s Innovation and Skills Plan

Although the federal government can’t alter curriculum, Hilchie says they do have a leadership role to play, and there has been a lot of progress made in the past two years.

In the 2017 budget, the government outlined Canada’s Innovation and Skills Plan. The plan has committed money and strategy to areas that significantly boost Canadians’ digital skills:

• Work-integrated learning, including the funding of cooperative education programs that will link students and employers
• $50 million in funding to organizations outside the formal curriculum who are committed to teaching kids digital skills and coding
• Money for job training for those receiving unemployment insurance
• Funding for “superclusters,” which are groups of innovative businesses that have the potential to “accelerate economic growth.”

The supercluster initiative was given a significant push with additional funding and planning announced in the February 2018 federal budget.

 “As a country, we’re moving in the right direction,” says Hilchie. “We can’t let up on this. We need to keep focusing on creating infrastructure to produce the talent we need.”