Newfoundland and Labrador has a market based economy — jobs and businesses depend upon people spending. Roughly 55 per cent of our economy is driven by consumerism – a social and economic order that encourages you and me to buy more stuff.
Today the peak spending year happens at age 35. Millennials have been marrying later, which in turn affects when they buy that first home, the furniture to fill it, and when they need childcare.
Since the 1980s, the Baby Boomer generation — born between 1946 and 1964 — has fuelled an enormous spending engine.
As millennials enter their peak consumption years and baby boomers live longer, the two groups will provide a double-barreled boost to consumption.
Boomers also control 70 per cent of the nation’s disposable income. This is partly driven by accumulated income, but also by longer careers. That means the boomer generation will still maintain enormous spending muscle.
By 2025, 27 per cent of the population of Newfoundland and Labrador will be over the age of 65.
This creates at least two opportunities for us.
First, we must continue to engage the baby boomers in the labour force. They bring experience, wisdom and know how.
Today’s 75 is the new 60. People’s ability to be healthy and productive has increased dramatically over the past century.
Many pension plans have been modernized to reflect this new normal, moving from defined benefits to defined contributions.
Business opportunities with this aging demographic include condominiums, health care products, and long term care facilities.
But one thing baby boomers can’t do any more is have babies. Newfoundland and Labrador has suffered from some of the worst out migration for several generations. People have been leaving this province in the tens of thousands for decades. As well, we have more people set to retire than to enter the labour force.
This is why we need immigration.
Canada’s modest population growth has only come as a result of immigration.
Of the immigrants who arrived in Canada in 2018, 155,000 were between the ages of 25 -39, the core working age group. These are also prime years for having children and being a great conductor for economic growth.
As Canada focuses its immigration policies on skilled workers, most immigrants do have the needed trade or skills, and most have a job lined up before they arrive.
A report by Statistics Canada reveals that our country’s immigrants tend to be highly educated and educated in demanding fields of study.
The report’s most striking finding is that immigrants hold about half (50.9 per cent) of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) university degrees in Canada.
There are a slew of studies suggesting that high-skilled immigration is key to innovation in America. Foreign nationals living in the United States accounted for 25.6 per cent of all patent applications and founded 26 percent of start-ups, including a majority of Silicon Valley start-ups.
But wait a minute you say — what about Newfoundland and Labrador’s 14 per cent unemployment rate? We can’t be bringing in immigrants when unemployment is so high.
Newfoundland and Labrador’s immigration programs are employer driven. Employers must go thorough exhaustive means to demonstrate that they have tried to recruit locally before they can recruit an immigrant to fill a position.
80 percent of N.L.’s immigration is via the provincial nominee program stream, which is tied to a job.
Often when an immigrant with a unique skill set is recruited, it means a business can continue to operate and support the Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who are employed there.
Immigrants are also more likely to start a business and employ people.
Immigration is a long-term solution and it takes time to build up our capacity to recruit and retain immigrants.
Recently the Board hosted Nimish Aidah, a professor from New York, who spoke on the topic “Do immigrants steal our jobs?”
They do not. Immigrants not only increase the supply of labour, they simultaneously increase demand for it, using the wages they earn to rent apartments, eat in restaurants, get haircuts, and buy televisions and phones. That means there are more jobs building homes, selling food, giving haircuts and dispatching the trucks that move those electronics. Immigrants increase the size of the overall population, which means they increase the size of the economy. You don’t have to look very far to see how immigration has boosted an economy.
Prince Edward Island is enjoying an unprecedented boom thanks to immigration.
Logically, if immigrants were “stealing” jobs, so would every young person leaving school and entering the job market; countries should become poorer as they get larger. In reality, of course, the opposite happens.
We need all hands on deck.
This includes every Newfoundlander and Labradorian and as many immigrants as we can attract to grow our economy and ensure jobs for all. We have so many talented international students at Memorial; let’s ensure that many of them choose to make Newfoundland and Labrador their home.
We are in this together.
Janis Byrne is chair of the St. John’s Board of Trade.
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