[January 07, 2009] The Developing Workforce Problem - Extreme Makeover - Boomer Edition: Living in the past is killing the future Tweet (Canada Newswire English Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Attention News Editors HALIFAX, Jan. 7 /CNW/ - There may yet be a silver lining to the current economic turmoil. It buys us time to deal with the increasingly critical labour shortage. In The Developing Workforce Problem: Confronting Canadian Labour Shortages in the Coming Decades, published today by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), Dalhousie University Professor Emeritus Dr. Jim McNiven says "the coming generalized shortage of available workers will present challenges to the Canadian economy quite unlike those that characterized the previous century." The current downturn does NOT solve the problem. McNiven says we would need a sustained recession over some 20 years to cope with the demographic crunch we have created for ourselves. "In the 1970s and 1980s, the Canadian economy was restructured to meet the challenge of the entry of the huge baby boom generation into the employed labour force," he explains. "With the demographic changes that have taken place since then this design is no longer working. Indeed, continuing to adhere to it threatens Canadians' standard of living, and could lead to unrest, outmigration, and slow-to-nonexistent economic growth coupled with high inflation." AIMS Executive Vice President Charles Cirtwill says McNiven's paper comes at an opportune time because it shows that even a long-term recession will do little to delay the point in time when there will be too few workers to support our economy. "The message here is simple," says Cirtwill. "Pouring billions into supposedly 'saving' jobs might make for a good sound bite, but given what this paper tells us about the shrinking work force and the real labour shortage it begs the question: saving jobs for whom? We need different answers to these pressing questions and the coming months will demonstrate if we are up to the challenge, or not." The complete report can be found on the AIMS website at www.AIMS.ca Jim McNiven, (902) 477-9791; Charles Cirtwill, AIMS Executive Vice President, (902) 489-7699 Copyright ? 2009 Canada Newswire Ltd. All Rights Reserved. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]