The government of Saskatchewan is launching a new website designed to help employers in the province find and hire foreign labour.
“This new section [of the government’s website] is going to help us reduce duplication,” said Rob Norris, Saskatchewan’s Minister of Advanced Education, Employment and Immigration. “[It’s] going to help employers increase efficiency (and) it’s going to make it easier for employees to connect with community services and qualify employment.”
The province, which has experienced massive growth in recent years, hopes to welcome 12,000 new arrivals in 2011 – a large portion of which, according to Norris, should be skilled workers coming through the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program (SINP).
“Over the course of the next five, seven, 10 years, the number of jobs opening up in Saskatchewan will range between 75,000 and 90,000 jobs,” said Norris. “When we ramp those projections up, it doesn’t take much to actually see those numbers go in excess of 100,000.”
Employers, too, say that the labour challenges are more pressing than ever and that it can be extremely daunting to navigate government “red tape” to import needed labour.
“The [SINP] program reduces a fair amount of that [red tape],|” said Jim Semple, vice president of Brandt Engineered Products, an employer that regularly recruits and hires foreign workers. “When you need someone, you need them in so many weeks, not two or three years.”
In fact, the website is the result of consultations between employers and the provincial government, who have been trying to simplify the process to maximize efficiency.
Source: Regina Leader-Post