International students are critical to our future talent pipeline
I have talked with and surveyed a lot of employers in recent years about their willingness to hire immigrants. When I ask them would you hire an immigrant that is in Canada and has a work permit - almost all say absolutely. When I ask them if they would go through the process of international recruitment, do all the paperwork, pay the fees, help them new hires move to Canada, help get them set up here, wait 6-18 months, etc. - the vast majority - particularly small firms - say no.
This is why international student attraction must be a key part of our workforce development strategy. International students with a post-graduate work permit are here are ready to work.
Of course, international students are not the only source of talent. Truth be told, many of the international students already have post-secondary education and, if recruiting them was much easier, they might not need to study here in the first place.
But for many even with existing PSE, it’s not a bad idea to study here. They get to know the country and community. They get to work on their language skills and many get to work while in school.
They key, however; is attracting international students that have a reasonable chance to finding a job in the province post-graduation. As has been pointed out by a number of columnists recently, there are something like 3-4 times as many international PSE graduates each year across Canada to the number of post-graduate work permits issued.
Instead of trying to fit international students into existing PSE courses, we may even have to develop new courses to meet a specific workforce gap.
As of December 31, 2021, there were 2,450 International Mobility Program (IMP) work permit holders under post-graduate employment in New Brunswick. That is up by 86% since 2019. Still, relative to the national total, we have only about half as many as we should.
As shown in the table, most are working in urban centres. Good to see Cape Breton retaining a lot of its international PSE grads.