Canada’s labour force will continue growing, but the overall participation rate will fall sharply during the next quarter century in the wake of the retirement of millions of baby boomers and the country’s low fertility rate, according to a Statistics Canada report.
It says there will be significantly fewer workers per retiree in 25 years and that will be important when studying the pressure being exerted on some “pay as you go” public pension and health program.
There is another challenge on top of the inevitable drop in the overall participation rate of the Canadian population: the ageing of the workforce. The proportion of the labour force aged 55 years and is expected to reach between 18% and 20% in 2021, about double that observed in the mid-1990s.
“This represents a major challenge for employers in terms of managing and renewing their labour force,” states the report. “The increased number of older workers could also affect labour productivity in the future.”
To read the report on Statistics Canada’s website, click here.
To comment on this story email craig.sebastiano@rci.rogers.com.