TORONTO -- Canadian manufacturers are confronting a series of challenges, including a looming skills shortage, the head of Next Generation Manufacturing Canada said today.
“It’s a highly disruptive, highly volatile business environment today,” Jayson Myers, CEO of NGen, said during the keynote address of SME’s FABTECH Canada show at the Toronto Congress Center. “It’s going to be a couple of challenging years here.”
NGen is a non-profit that funds manufacturing projects and conducts workforce development activities.
One of the leading issues facing Canadian manufacturers is an aging workforce, Myers said.
“We’ve got a big skills issue in Canada,” the NGen chief said. “Twenty-five percent of the workforce will be retired by 2030. We’re going to have to increase productivity by 25 percent by 2030. The need to boost productivity is going to drive automation.”
Manufacturers are also dealing with economic issues.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has caused oil prices to spike. The average price of gasoline in the U.S. now exceeds $5 a gallon. Inflation is rising worldwide. In the U.S., the Federal Reserve is boosting interest rates to try to cool down inflation.
Myers also said there are more tensions between Canada and its southern neighbor. “We’re seeing the U.S. become more protectionist,” he said.
Beyond that, Myers said, Canada and other countries face challenges related to electric vehicle development.
Batteries for EVs need to last longer, he added.
“The EV industry today is totally unsustainable,” Myers said. EV technology is changing rapidly and “will be fundamentally different in five years’ time.”
Manufacturers also need a new mindset, the NGen official said.
Companies should view themselves as supplying solutions and not just products.
“A product is not a solution,” he said. “We need to be flexible, we need to be agile.”
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