The FOCAL initiative has several stated objectives, and the following are particularly critically important to hiring new graduates across the automotive industry:

• Engaging industry stakeholders in actionable discussions about labour market challenges and partnering to meet them
• Helping leaders in the automotive industry recruit and train an evolving workforce
• Providing access to job training and hiring grants

The automotive industry continues to grow at a rapid pace, delivering a $12.5 billion contribution to GDP in 2020. Recent data from FOCAL reveals that the industry directly supports 188,000 jobs in automotive production and an additional 22,000 jobs in automotive research and technology.

But, as a Canadian automotive industry report states, there are “an additional 371,400 people in aftermarket services and dealership networks.” All this adds up to a truly massive industry presence that requires talented, digitally-advanced recruits to fuel growth. In many cases, new graduates are the answer.

The impact of Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 technologies will have, as we have reported in the recent past, significant but manageable impacts on Canada’s automotive sector, especially as that shift affects current employment levels and future training, upskilling and hiring practices. Specifically:

• 80% of jobs performed by production occupations will be affected through the partial or full elimination of certain tasks
• 50% of skilled trades tasks will be equally affected
• The industry will also be influenced by the creation of new job titles reflecting the increased requirements for digital skills

As you can imagine, new graduates in engineering, computer science, mechatronics and other disciplines are often excellent candidates for evolving and innovative roles in the automotive industry. The question is when and how to seek them out.

FOCAL findings

The FOCAL team has been proactive in seeking out potential new automotive industry recruits through our knowledge dissemination efforts. We also strive to identify recruitment gaps as expected in the coming years, breaking this information down by both region and skill/role. 

As an example, this report details projected recruitment gaps in Ontario within the context of both expanded and decreased production. Its concluding comments note: “These employment outlooks lead to different levels of forecasted hiring requirement (i.e., labour demand). In the baseline scenario, hiring requirement from employers in the industry was projected to total an estimated 39,870 workers over the 2021-2030 forecast period. In the upside scenario, labour demand rises to 56,680 workers, a 42% increase from the baseline. The largest relative increase was seen for the engineering & technical occupation group at 60% from the baseline. This group, which includes various engineering disciplines and occupations related to computer software and hardware, is primed to play a critical role in driving growth for the FOCAL Automotive Production Industry.”

Successful recruitment is about timing—so when should you connect with new grads?

Near the end of April each year, the job market gains access to brand new university and college graduates poised to join the workforce. Employers are understandably eager to hire these new potential-filled graduates and the competition to grab their attention can be fierce, so waiting until graduation is a missed opportunity. Employers should start recruiting these students before the winter holidays or early in the New Year, if not sooner. Many employers start reaching out to prospective hires shortly after the academic year begins—in fact, scouting talent in September or October during the final year of their program is not uncommon. You can also consider hiring summer students or co-op roles through these academic institutions and should reach out to their co-op offices for advice on when to share these opportunities. In many cases, early January is appropriate, but it’s always better to be prepared ahead of time than scrambling at the last minute. The best talent tends to be scooped up early, and you want to be hiring when they’re available—not weeks later, when the hiring pool has been significantly reduced.

Recent graduates, co-op students and summer students with specialized skills are a huge source of talent and in high demand. They’re very enthusiastic about learning new skills and taking on challenging projects. And to say that new grads from Gen Z are tech-savvy is an understatement. In addition to being known as digital natives, many of them took courses online during the pandemic and throughout their academic career, so their understanding of a digital working environment comes as second nature.

While these dates seem far away, there is much planning to do before sharing an opportunity and making a hire from this pool of talent. Employers can and should be planning fall outreach now and throughout the summer for the best possible recruitment results.

Effective recruitment is particularly challenging to navigate in this period of transition within the automotive industry, but FOCAL is here to help. Specifically, we are:

• Helping industry understand the details of the skills shortage, forecasting the supply and demand for many occupations
• Ensuring that the auto industry understands the labour market impacts of a shift from ICE to EVs, including offering subsidies if workers are trained to work in a reduced carbon economy
• Developing online tools – through our occupational profiles and skills transferability matrices – to help recruit impacted workers transition to the digital automotive economy
• Enabling employers in the sector to find and hire the employees they need, especially among graduating students

Follow FOCAL to stay informed

We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us and we’re geared up to handle it. Please follow FOCAL on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay informed about the progress we’re making and gain access to resources and special events as well as funding opportunities for employers.

We encourage everyone reading this blog to share it with their professional networks to best share these opportunities with automotive sector staff and employers. Again, the FOCAL team welcomes your questions and feedback – you may contact us at your convenience.