The Thompson region will have an additional 35,000 jobs in the next 10 years, with the highest demand coming from trades, health care and administration, finance and clerical staff, according to a new labour-market report from Venture Kamloops.
Six hundred “key players” were surveyed, including businesses, major employers, school districts and post-secondary institutions.
Jim Anderson, executive director for Venture Kamloops, said the results of the study may seem counterintuitive, given that Merritt-area companies have recently announced layoffs.
“You’ve got a mill laying off, and Highland Valley Copper is laying off right now, and this happens to be at the same time as this study came out,” he said. “We are looking long range and broader trends — those can’t be seen to negate the results of this study.”
There is some Merritt-specific data released along with the report.
The divide between men and women in the Merritt workforce is nearly an even split.
The highest occupation family of workers is low-skilled, at 40 per cent. That’s followed by 25 per cent semi-skilled, 19 per cent skilled/trades, 10 per cent management and 7 per cent professional/technical.
Looking towards the future, the report points to a noticeable shift in the current and future workforce training requirements.
Currently, nearly 60 per cent of the workforce in low-skilled positions have a university degree or higher education. Those who are in that position are known as underemployed.
“Employers are telling us that trend cannot continue,” said Anderson. “First of all they don’t want to underemploy people. They don’t want overqualified people working in jobs — it doesn’t make sense financially for anyone. So there’s a real disparity there at this point.”
In the future, what employers said they’ll to fill are professional/technical positions with an appropriately educated workforce. “There’s a definite mismatch there in who’s working what jobs,” he said.
With the number of skilled and trades jobs on the rise, and plain labour jobs on the decline, that makes educational institutions all the more important in a community like Merritt. “The idea that you can walk out of high school and walk into a high paying job in a mill just isn’t the same as it used to be,” he said.
The 35,000 people will be needed to cover attrition, retirements and projected growth. But he said that number could go up, depending on how many major projects go forward.
“There are 31 different major capital projects, and if those were all to be approved that would require an additional compliment of 29,000 workers,” said Anderson. “The likelihood that all 31 projects go ahead is not high at all, but there are some that are probably going to happen. The Kinder Morgan pipeline twinning, the Ajax mine in Kamloops, there’s a large ski resort up Valemount way — there are some projects that are going to happen.”
The province funded $113,000, while local industries funded the remaining $92,000.
