ARC Business Solutions Inc.

Speaking Notes from session on CBC Radio1 / March 2, 2012

ARC Representative: Graham Murray, President

Listen to the complete session at:
http://www.cbc.ca/edmontonam/episodes/2012/03/02/labour-shortages-expected/

Issue: Current Challenges in Alberta Labor Market

Not enough qualified IT resources to meet market demands
ARC has opportunities for 40 IT resources in Edmonton today
Problem is getting worse
Heavy growth started in 2006 and with a break in 2010 due to impacts from the world economic downturn, growth restarted in 2011 and hasn’t stopped…
Creates inflationary conditions – driving up costs
Driving customers to consider alternatives to satisfy their IT needs – such as off-shoring
Off-shoring – projects being worked on and delivered by non-Canadians in other countries.
Off-shoring is an option that companies are considering because of the lack of and the high cost of locally qualified candidates
Dollars being spent outside of Canada delivering solutions for Canadian companies
A customer told me the reason they off-shored was that they felt they could not staff a 100 person IT team locally. They were likely right.
However – if we don’t solve this problem – more work will go off-shore
Downside – will ultimately see the death of the IT sector; just like the manufacturing sector in NA – where most manufacturing is now done in China
You are already seeing a declining trend in Canada with students are not going into IT

Thoughts on the creation of the new coalition

I think this is a great, when I read it in the paper yesterday I was very pleased.
I am looking into getting connected into this group to see where our company can assist.
It also highlighted to ARC that this problem is bigger than just the IT sector. 600,000 new jobs in the next 10 years scare me.
This will be a huge challenge for this Province.
The Province and the Feds need to get focused on this.

What are you looking to see the government do?

We need to make it easier to get skilled resources into this country.
Right now it takes 3-4-5 months to get a resource into this country, this is too long.
The current process requires companies to do a labor market opinion which requires companies to prove that there is really a need and that we have done enough due diligence searching locally and prove it to the feds. We need to do an LMO (Labor Market Opinion) for each role
Governments need to acknowledge there is a wide spread resourcing shortfall in these industries and allow companies to bring in qualified resources through a streamlined process
If we don’t, companies will have no choice but to go off shore to satisfy their needs.
Then the IT sector will see the same fate as the NA manufacturing sector.
Our company is fundamentally opposed to off-shoring as it runs counter to what this country, our company (and most other companies) are trying to accomplish – which is to grow and contribute to this nation.