Hyper-local workforce planning
I am convinced and have been for a long time that workforce availability will likely be the primary enabler of economic development for at least the foreseeable future. I know there are those who think it will be technology – robots, AI, etc. and while I see an increasing role for technology when I look at the economy of today I still think people are the primary asset.
As I write this, I am looking out the window of a yurt in Fundy National Park. It’s 7 am and I can just start to see the tiny village of Alma starting to wake up. A few bureaucrats/elected officials in Ottawa, listening to economists who couldn’t find Alma on a map, are throwing darts at a board to see how many immigrants, international students and temporary workers can come to Canada. Government folks are looking at NOC codes demand forecasts built from shaky macroeconomic projections. Some are suggesting we only focus on targeted occupations such as nurses and engineers and others recommend we don’t do anything - and let the labour market tighten to the point businesses are forced to invest in technology (or close, move out, downsize, etc.) or significantly raise wages.
What does Alma need? If you could snap your fingers and there were no constraints, what would Alma’s workforce development plan look like? People are moving here - but mostly to retire. The lady at the General Store said the kids have to commute nearly an hour to school. Any kind of health care is also a far commute. Good luck if you want other services. I recently chatted with someone else in the area that suggested there could be a number of entrepreneurial opportunities in the area but essentially no entrepreneurs.
Some would say, let Alma die - or to be more specific – let it atrophy. People will still come out in the summer to work in tourism and go on EI in the winter. For those living here, they will just have to get used to driving – a lot- if they want just about anything. What about the swelling population aged 70+? Too bad, granny. Update your spectacles, get in the old Ford, and drive to Moncton.
In some alternate universe, I see health care professionals commuting out here once a week to provide services. I see a hybrid K-12 education model that blends Khan Academy with 1-2 days of in class instruction each week. I see entrepreneurs in agriculture, fishing, tourism, etc. setting up here to take advantage of opportunities. I see boosting broadband/Starlink such that people can work remotely or the growing retiree population out here can participate in the workforce on an irregular basis.
What’s wrong with this picture? No one really cares. Strike that, the 400 people who live in the village care - the ~2,000 that live in the wider area care. The 41.5 million elsewhere in Canada are not particularly interested (except the few that come out here in the off-season and expect more services).
Maybe we should be doing workforce planning bottom up. Community by community. Intraprovincial region by region. Targeted. Focused. Innovative. Why put old people on the road to commute down windy roads for an hour to access dental services, or optometry, or physio, or blood work, etc.? Why not set up an area right in the village to host these professionals? Or maybe a mobile clinic?
People will say it’s too costly. They should all move to the city. Well, you have to make a choice. Either you ‘Joey Smallwood’ every small remote community in the province or you at least give them a fighting chance to survive.
What does hyper-local workforce planning look like? It doesn’t mean replicating all the work done now at the provincial, industry and occupation levels. It means identifying current/forecasted labour supply/demand within a reasonable catchment area and identifying solutions. It means engaging local employers to assess their needs. It means looking for innovative solutions - 60+, work placements, temporary workers, - and, the potential of technology.
There is a JD Vance in every small community across Canada. Until now we have mostly avoided the resentment (mostly) that comes when whole regions are dying and others are booming. Proper workforce planning, I think, will be important to maintain some balance in the country.
Not all communities/regions have the same assets and attributes and, therefore, not the same potential for growth. But all communities should work with the assets and attributes they have and, increasingly, that must include stronger workforce planning.
I remember when I was a kid growing up in Montreal groceries would be delivered by bicycle to people's homes from orders given to the local grocery store over the phone. The idea that both products and services (think Healthcare, dentistry, Education) could be provided this way seems to be a natural fit for NB towns. Amazon and Skip certainly are doing it. Instead of having centralized hubs of medical services providing ALL healthcare, why not have roaming clinics that travel through towns and setup shop a couple days a week to see people, like the ice-cream/food trucks? This would provide much needed relief to the hospital waiting rooms and collect more data on the state of health in the province. I agree NB would benefit from moving away from modelling itself after large cities and use a more decentralized approach that keeps the small town economies going.
In a country as large and sparsely populated as Canada, it's a shame that we have not seen more investments in fields like telehealth. Investments in infrastructure are just as necessary now as they were in the early days of Confederation if want to see all of Canada grow and prosper. As a lifelong resident of rural NS, I worry that the lack of meaningful input 'from the front lines', and that the ongoing centralization of power in our political capitals will result in the deaths of many rural communities throughout Canada.