We explored some of the influences on the demand for immigrant care workers – one of which was whether employers experienced difficulties recruiting/retaining domestic care workers. A few employers noted that they did not have any issues with recruiting/retaining domestic care workers. Many of these employers who did not find it difficult to recruit and retain domestic care workers were from Québec.

Interviewer: Okay. And have you ever had any difficulties hiring or retaining Canadian-born workers?

Care Worker: No, not at all (Québec Employer 2).

Other employers state that they do not have a hard time retaining domestic care workers, but rather they do not receive as many applications from domestic care workers as they do from immigrant workers:

You know what? We just don’t get the applications. There’s no problem. You know, we’re more than happy to hire but we don’t get the applications (BC Employer 11).

Other employers note that there seems to be a shortage of domestic care workers within certain fields such as home care and nursing.

When we asked why there is a difficulty recruiting/retaining domestic care workers, respondents to the online employer survey highlighted the shortage most frequently followed by the related issue of how Canadian born workers can make more in other jobs (see Figure IV.12). Some of the employers we interviewed suggest that Canadian born workers are not interested in this type of work. One BC Employer suggests that many Canadian workers are not interested in certain sectors of work such as home care because the pay is not government contracted, therefore, the pay is lower.