Right person for the right job, whatever their passport Viewpoint careers advice blog

Right person for the right job, whatever their passport Attracting international talent to drive business success I’ve recently returned from Canada, a land with a multitude of opportunities for job seekers with the right skills. Like many other countries around the world however, Canada has struggled to fill many of the highly skilled vacancies that businesses are creating. The government’s answer? To redesign their immigration laws and processes in an attempt to attract the international talent that Canada’s businesses need. It’s early days yet to assess how effective these new rules will be, but at least it’s a start in the right direction. Canada is not alone in its struggle to fill the new jobs industry is creating with appropriately skilled people. The world is acutely short of skilled workers in a number of industries and countries. We recently published the Hays Global Skills Index  which throws a spotlight on this issue and lays bare the paradox of record levels of unemployment sitting side by side with organisations struggling to find the key skills they need to grow. Immigration     a political football? Sadly, Canada’s pragmatism seems lacking in so many other places around the world. Immigration is becoming a political football as politicians worldwide use it as a simple message to appeal to their electorate. “Local jobs for local people” goes the saying. However, this ignores the fact that local companies are often failing to find the skills they need locally and must look internationally to find the talent they need. When immigration processes make this an onerous and arduous task, they often give up and simply create those jobs elsewhere. The end result: fewer new skilled jobs created and fewer follow-on opportunities for the local unemployed. There are plenty of examples of this happening right now in a surprising number of places. The UK, USA, Australia and even Singapore are putting in place barriers that restrict the flow of talented labour that their domestic businesses need to access. When you consider that some of the world’s most famous companies were started by immigrants to a country, there is a real risk that governments slowly throttle the business environment that fostered these companies to start up in the first place and create hundreds of thousands of jobs along the way. Optimally allocate resources to ensure growth Just as in any business problem, optimal allocation of resources is the route to faster growth and that applies to people as much as it does to capital. So my message to business: don’t give up on your efforts to attract the very best people that you need, wherever they may come from, and lobby your politicians to make employing them an easier and faster process. Canada is an example that shows it can be done. My message to politicians: businesses drive your economy and are the engine-room for job creation and an improved standard of living for all. So encourage and allow them to build world-class skilled teams using the very best talent available globally, because the local jobs that will be created as a result will deliver massive benefit to the local population, your electorate. //