• There are a number of important employment issues for any business related to an ageing workforce – including pensions, health costs, absenteeism, replacement costs, additional training costs, availability of workers, the price of new labour, and having to be accustomed to new workers with a different type of mind set.
• Levies on employees – like the health levy in Ontario – rapidly become part of negotiated labour contracts and terms of employment.
• Longer waiting periods in the Canadian health care system and changes with respect to what treatments are covered by public funds is increasing the time and the costs borne by business in returning injured or ill employees back to work.
• There is a lack of information for smaller companies related to employment standards, practices, and best practices.
• Regardless of the employment practices of individual companies, communities in rural areas often lack the infrastructure (roads, health care, education, other municipal services) to attract or retain skilled personnel. This problem is widespread outside major urban centres, and was raised in the BC interior and on Vancouver Island, in Saskatchewan, rural Manitoba, northern Ontario and Quebec, as well as across the Atlantic provinces.
• Communities outside major urban centres also cite the lack of personal networks – immigrant communities, professional or academic networks – as an impediment to attracting and retaining skilled personnel.
• Manufacturers will have to adopt some very innovative workplace and employment practices to attract younger people with the skills and experience they require. Wage and salary rates are likely to increase steeply over the next five to ten years. And, major costs will have to be incurred in all aspects of human resource management. The cost burden will fall heavily on smaller or medium-sized manufacturers.

Recommendations for Action

Provincial governments must improve efficiencies in the administration of their workplace safety insurance programs.

Federal and provincial governments must ensure that funding mechanisms for Canadian health care do not increase direct labour costs for employers.

Canada’s Employment Insurance system must be restructured as a stand alone fund in which premiums are paid only to sustain the costs of fund benefits.

Federal and provincial governments must ensure that regulations affecting workplace health, safety, and environmental protection are administered effectively at the lowest possible compliance costs to business. Compliance requirements must be simplified, rationalized, and harmonized across jurisdictions in Canada.

The federal government must encourage the continuous improvement and effective enforcement of employment and labour standards in newly emerging economies on par with those in Canada.