TALENT


Canadians on the move


Despite some economic headwinds, mobility of key talent remains a priority for business success in Canada, says Stephen Cryne, president and CEO of the Canadian Employee Relocation Council.


R


esults from a recent survey of Canadian businesses about the relocation support employers provide to transferring employees point to an ongoing need to move key talent to


drive business success and expand markets. Within Canada, the western provinces, dominated by natural-


resources sectors, remain top destinations for domestic moves in the 2015 survey. For international moves, Europe, the Middle East and China are


named by Canadian firms as the top three destinations. Locations that are cited as the most challenging for assignments include the Middle East, Africa, Russia, India, and South America. It’s a known fact that employee mobility drives economic growth


and employment. Employers today are operating in a very competitive and complex global market. In such a climate, getting the right talent in the right place, and at the right time, is key to business success. The biannual survey, conducted between February and April by


the Canadian Employee Relocation Council (CERC), found that talent acquisition and project needs were the top two reasons for employee transfers. This year, 75 of Canada’s major employers participated in the survey,


which provides important relocation policy benchmarking data and tracks industry trends. Just over three-quarters of respondents are headquartered in Canada. A total of 59 organisations in the survey have global operations, and almost half of those (47 per cent) employ more than 10,000 workers. The majority of participating companies (74 per cent) reported that


the level of difficulty in recruiting new staff had remained unchanged in the past 12 months, up from 66 per cent in 2013, when labour markets were tighter. In 2015, 19 per cent of firms said it had been more difficult to hire


personnel over the past year, down from the 29 per cent that said it was difficult in 2013.


Some statistics A key finding of the survey is that, although employers are continuing to provide strong support for their transferring employees and family members, benefits are being tightly controlled on some of the services designed to help the employee and family acclimatise to the new location and repatriate at the end of the assignment. Too much tightening of these services may deliver short-term


financial benefit at the expense of employee satisfaction, leading to increased staff turnover. The average one-time cost to relocate an employee with a home


in Canada is around CAD57,000 (£28,032, €41,000), although some organisations will spend twice that much. The average cost of a move between Canada and the US is CAD70,000 (£34,361, €50,000), but the cost can be well over CAD100,0000 (£49,180, €70,000). For international transfers, the average cost ranges between


CAD110,000 (£54,098, €80,000) and CAD125,000 (£61,475, €90,000). When other costs relating to taxes, housing, schooling and international medical care are factored in, the average cost of a three-year international assignment can easily work out at more than CAD1 million (£491,800, €700,000). With a drop in the market price of oil, and slumping demand for


natural resources, Canada’s economy has taken quite a hit in the past year – a hit that it managed to dodge very well during the financial meltdown of 2008. To put this scenario into some perspective, the price of oil plunged


by more than 55 per cent between July 2014 and January 2015. The Canadian dollar has fallen 17 per cent in value against the US dollar since July 2014, and GDP growth has been indolent, falling by 0.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2015. On the positive side, labour markets have been fairly resilient,


with the creation of 176,000 full-time jobs over the past year and an unemployment rate that has held steady at 6.8 per cent. Housing markets, too, have been strong, particularly in ‘hot’ markets like


20 | Re:locate | Canada Spring 2016


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52