{"id":6316,"date":"2013-03-05T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=6316"},"modified":"2013-03-06T09:17:59","modified_gmt":"2013-03-06T17:17:59","slug":"college-weighs-in-on-looming-job-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/03\/05\/college-weighs-in-on-looming-job-shortage\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun weighs in on looming job shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"

BC will lose close to 19,000 jobs due to a shortage of qualified persons, according to a number of recent reports.\u00a0The BC Labour Market Profile, BC Stats, and Statistics Canada confirm that the number of jobs that require post-secondary credentials will exceed the amount of BC graduates between 2016 and 2020.<\/p>\n

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Camosun College\u2019s Gloria Darroch (photo by TJ Nyce)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to Gloria Darroch, director of cooperative education at Camosun College, this job deficit has been expected for years and the province is only now a short distance away from the hurdle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis problem has been going on for several years,\u201d says Darroch. \u201cWe first noticed the problem when we saw that they stopped hiring co-op students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the\u0118unfilled jobs, 8,400 will require a\u0118university degree, 8,100 a college\u0118credential, and 2,300 trades training. Educational institutions are well aware of this looming crisis and some have taken proactive measures to address the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation is no worse than it was,\u201d says Darroch, \u201cbut it\u2019s kind of depressing because it has been going on for a while and we know we have a big skill shortage coming as baby boomers start retiring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Camosun has received $35 million from the federal and provincial governments to build a new trades education and innovation building at the Interurban campus in response to the growing demand for skilled labor and technical workers.<\/p>\n

On January 29, college president Kathryn Laurin addressed the Victoria Chamber of Commerce and spoke of Camosun as a key economic driver for business.<\/p>\n

Presently, skills shortages can be found in shipbuilding, construction, mechanical trades, healthcare, and technology. Camosun has committed itself to tackling this job crisis by producing more skilled individuals to fill the foreseeable empty positions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as trades go, I think people are going into more technical careers,\u201d says second-year psychology student Thomas Holland. \u201cIt would be bad for the economy at first, but if people want a job in trades they will always be able to re-locate somewhere else, just like how they go to Alberta\u201d<\/p>\n

Graduating finance student Peter Foucher is unconvinced by the government reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost find it difficult to believe that we have a shortage of qualified people,\u201d says Foucher, \u201cespecially given that we have so many students graduating from universities and colleges, even in Victoria alone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BC will lose close to 19,000 jobs due to a shortage of qualified persons, according to a number of recent reports.\u00a0The BC Labour Market Profile, BC Stats, and Statistics Canada confirm that the number of jobs that require post-secondary credentials will exceed the amount of BC graduates between 2016 and 2020. According to Gloria Darroch, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-february-20-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6316"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6494,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6316\/revisions\/6494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}