Employee shortages are rampant in Hamilton. Where have all the workers gone?

The signs are everywhere, figuratively and almost literally.

Now Hiring!" Mega Job Fair!" We're Hiring!" 4 Day Work Week, Weekends Off!"

All across Hamilton, businesses are pleading for workers. And it's not just a Hamilton phenomenon. The same is true across the country.

From the shutdowns and layoffs that marked the start of the pandemic, the pendulum has now swung fully in the other direction. In the second quarter of this year, employers were unable to fill nearly a million jobs across the country, according to a recent Statistics Canada report.

What gives? How did we go from one extreme to the other?

Three things, really:

1. A rapidly aging population as baby boomers reach retirement age.

2. A declining birth rate for a generation.

3. A new attitude toward the nature of work fuelled by the pandemic.

StatsCan reported a record number of retirements in August for the preceding 12 months. About 307,000 Canadians retired between August 2021 and August 2022, an increase of 32 per cent from the previous 12 months.

More ominously, StatsCan also reported that an alarming 12 per cent of permanent employees plan to retire within the next 12 months. Since the start of the pandemic, about 600,000 Canadians have joined the over-65 age bracket.

The changing age structure of the population in Canada is going to have an effect for a long time," said Wayne Lewchuk, a labour studies professor at McMaster University.

Canada's fertility rate has fallen to an all-time low of 1.4 children per woman in 2020, well below the so-called replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. This means that the country's population would decline over time without immigration.

And even if the country's birth rate somehow rebounded, it still takes at least 16 more years for those newborns to reach the workforce.

The story is much the same throughout the developed world, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, meaning a lot of countries are going to be fighting for immigrants.

Everybody is going to be looking for somebody from somewhere else to do the work," said Armine Yalnizyan, formerly a senior economic policy adviser to the federal deputy minister of employment and social development. She's also an Atkinson Fellow on the future of workers.

Yet two out of three people coming into Canada are workers brought in on temporary work programs, Yalnizyan noted, with no well-defined path to stay in the country permanently.

Without a path to permanent residency, she said, immigrants may think twice about coming to Canada.

We always talk about ourselves as a nation of immigrants," she said. We are now a nation of temporary intake."

And there's been a shift in how people view work since the start of the pandemic, particularly because of the decline of the traditional office environment.

The whole ability to work from home has opened up people's eyes to a new possibility," said Lewchuk. People are saying Why would I want to commute into work? If you want me, you're going to have to offer me that kind of option.'"

That is not going to go away," he added. COVID has really changed the nature of decision-making around whether you want to work or not."

Some of the sectors experiencing the worst shortages are predictable enough - health care and the service industry, thanks to burnout and the stress of complying with COVID sanitary restrictions for two years.

But even some nonservice industries are hurting. Maple Leaf Foods in Glanbrook was recently looking to fill about 100 job vacancies.

People are just saying, given the exposure to COVID, why would I want to work in a McDonald's or wherever for the low wages they're offering," Lewchuk said.

He said employers who post for work-at-home jobs are getting lots of applications, but very few applications for jobs that require face-to-face interactions.

People are being a lot more selective," Lewchuk said. People are weighing the risks of COVID in their decisions."

In mid-September, Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) had 327 job vacancies posted, nearly half of them nursing positions.

St. Joseph's Healthcare, meanwhile had 255 jobs posted, including 127 positions for registered nurses and 39 registered practical nursing jobs.

This is unlike anything we've seen in the past, and it's across the entire health-care system," said Maria Hayes, spokesperson for St. Joe's.

She said staffing shortages are affecting every area of hospital operations, from inpatient and outpatient care to mental health and regional services.

The last two and a half years have taken a toll particularly on those who work the front lines," Hayes said. Our health-care workers have shouldered an enormous load through the COVID-19 pandemic.

We've seen people leave the hospital for positions in less stressful environments. It's the aftermath of the pandemic."

Sharon Pierson, the COO and executive vice-president of clinical operations for HHS, said her hospital system had more than 1,400 job vacancies in total over the past three months.

A small pool of skilled workers for some highly-specialized health-care jobs is creating stiff competition across the sector, she noted. On top of that, retirements have been 30 per cent higher since April compared to the same period a year earlier.

Demand for hospital care is at an all-time high, Pierson said, with hospital occupancy rates regularly above 100 per cent. HHS also has one of the highest rates in the province of patients who arrive by ambulance, which suggests they're patients with more serious health concerns.

We have implemented several measures to mitigate staffing pressures, including creating standby clinical teams to address staffing gaps in high need areas, and expanding our internationally trained nurse program, which is funded by the province," said Pierson. We have also expedited our onboarding processes to get new staff working sooner."

We are infinitely grateful to our staff and physicians for their efforts to care for all patients," she added.

Also compounding the problem is worker absenteeism, which has really increased quite dramatically," said Lewchuk.

In one interview Lewchuk conducted for his research, an employee at a large retail outlet told him that, on any given day, one-third of the scheduled workers simply don't show up.

Then why doesn't the store just fire them all? Lewchuk asked. Because, the employee told him, if they sacked everyone who came in only two-thirds of the time, they'd have no workers."

The current situation is putting more power back in the hands of workers, Yalnizyan said, with the potential for a sea change in bargaining power at the negotiating table for unionized workers and huge potential gains for workers."

There's an opportunity to build a very large and resilient middle class instead of having working poverty a reality," she said.

A recent report by consulting firm Eckler Ltd. states that Canadian employers are projecting base salaries to rise by 4.2 per cent next year.

Lewchuk said that employers are also going to have to offer better benefits and options, such as blended work, where you can work part of the time from home."

There's something about the change in the power shift at work which is giving workers more latitude to do what they want to do," said Lewchuk. And that's causing ... fits for employers, to be honest.

The future of work now is quite exciting. It's changing in a way that will benefit workers unlike what we've seen in 20 years, maybe even 30 years."

Steve Buist is a Hamilton-based investigative reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbuist@thespec.com