Experts’ forecasts regarding the economic situation and the job market continue to be out of sync with reality. It certainly takes a fair amount of courage to make predictions today, knowing the high chance that they will be inaccurate tomorrow.

In the labor market, however, predictable and persistent trends are converging in the same direction. So-called zombie companies, those that survive laboriously and mainly thanks to low-paid labor and generous subsidies during the health crisis, appear to be on their way out.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) estimates that 69% of SME owners who received a Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) loan have not made any payments to date. The reprieve of almost three years will have been insufficient to revive many of them, in an economy increasingly oriented towards knowledge and technology, where cheap labor is unlikely to provide a lasting competitive advantage. .

For these businesses, the holiday season represents a crossroads: prolonging their survival or sealing a very sad fate for bosses and employees. Quebecers feel this since 42% of them fear that a loved one will lose their job soon.

Cyclical purges and cuts are common in many industries, but it is a safe bet that positions abolished in favor of new technologies will never see the light of day again.

We can foresee ongoing needs for training and redeployment of labor to fill as much as possible the gaps between the skills required for available jobs and the profile of job seekers.

Meanwhile, although the scarcity of talent is overwhelming many industries, we understand that a significant portion of available jobs are in sectors where it is difficult to convince locals to accept precarious or poorly paid positions.

Consequently, our employer associations, with the Conseil du patronat du Québec (CPQ) in the lead, continue to harass our governments to accelerate immigration in order to increase the labor pool. Helping its cause, the lobby refutes the notion of reception capacity and advocates greater openness.

Better, since no satisfactory scientific study has been found on this issue, “always more” in matters of immigration should go without saying. We understand that the anglicization of Greater Montreal, the road system in tatters and a housing crisis affecting citizens of all origins would not be sufficient empirical indicators to consider the existence of any reception capacity. The employers seem to be telling us “Don’t look up”, to draw a parallel with this film on the refutation of reality.

Dismissing all-out accusations about his culpable role in the housing crisis, he continues to build his parallel universe by telling us that massive immigration will encourage the construction of houses.

Worse, its accountability in the real world eludes it while the size of its government apparatus has increased by 40% since 2015, an additional contribution to the imbalance in the labor market and the scarcity of talent⁠.

There is no doubt that our era is characterized by numerous technological, environmental, economic and social challenges. The questioning of happy globalization, our relationship to housing and our ecological footprint, the development of green technologies in an economy resolutely focused on knowledge, the maintenance of a society that is both welcoming and determined to the success of a necessary cultural convergence, these small and large upheavals affect our organizations, the labor market and all of civil society.

Thus, the vigilance and determination of our institutions will be essential to ensure the development of Quebec, for the benefit of all Quebecers, beyond the partisan interests of sometimes overexposed personalities and pressure groups.