“The aging demographic makes it tough to find workers,” Petrovici said. “Rural areas are at an ever bigger disadvantage.”The province added 15,000 newcomers in just 12 months — the fastest rate of population growth since 1976 — reaching 800,000 people, the province said in March.
“We’re in crisis mode and it’s going to get worse,” he said. “The labour shortage is a really dire situation.”Given the recent changes to the province’s immigration program, he said four of his employees will be leaving New Brunswick. But Petrovici said he doesn’t have the resources required to pursue other immigration streams, which are more complicated to navigate and require labour market assessments.
Petrovici said he was told one of the issues is a delay with the federal allocation of candidates _ the number of foreign workers the province is able to welcome each year.Remi Lariviere, a spokesperson for the federal Immigration Department, said allocations for 2022 were delayed due to the 2021 federal election, the conflict in Ukraine and ongoing challenges related to the pandemic.