Could it be that newcomer skilled professionals will start getting decent jobs that respect their international academic qualifications? And could this actually start happening as soon as late next year?
Even more startling is the news that this honeymoon period could last the next two decades, or more.
"Certainly, current demographic and employment trends indicate that, beginning end-2011, employers will have to start hiring new talent to fill their staffing requirements, or they'll have to do without," Shalini da Cunha, executive director, Peel Halton Workforce Development Group, told Focus last week.
"These trends indicate this period could last as long as 14 years," she added. Da Cunha was obviously referring to the Baby Boom generation that could start retiring from the workplace as soon as 2011, causing a gradually increasing dearth of employees in the workforce.
"Yes, the recent recession has possibly eroded the savings of those approaching retirement, and so could slow the process. But the data is incontrovertible: there will be fewer employees out there, and companies will have to source fresh talent, either from the existing pool - or from the pool of new immigrants."
But she cautioned this is only one part of a multi-sided equation, and that several other key things have to happen - even as she indicated there could be many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.
Da Cunha operates in the Peel-Halton region, which continues to prove a strong magnet for newcomers. Further, for the most part, the recent newcomers have a higher level of university education, boding well for an Ontario that is increasingly turning towards a knowledge-based economy.
But just as the silver lining hides the deeper cloud within, there's a fly in the ointment: researcher and consultant Tom Zizys pointed out in his presentation to the Workforce Development Group last week that there may be limits to the degree the labour market can absorb knowledge workers.
There may, in fact, already be a degree - or three - of oversaturation: "The overqualification ratio (of university trained employees working in jobs not requiring such training) was 77 per cent among newcomers. And it was almost as bad among Canadian-born employees, at 57 per cent!"
Later talking to Focus, Zizys still emphasized the increasing need for higher education, but felt the need for a system offering a better - and quicker - match-up between the kind of jobs the labour market demanded with the kind of training imparted to knowledge workers.
The kind of training imparted to newcomers should, while retaining elements of teaching them how to write their CVs, how to prepare for their job interviews, etc, should also place stronger focus on mentoring, felt Nitin Dhora, Mentoring Program Coordinator at Dixie Bloor Neighbourhood Centre.
"While there are doubtless instances of newcomers struggling to get a right job fit in their first few years, we ourselves have plenty of success stories flowing from our mentoring program," Dhora said.
Even here, some are advocating a further shift in emphasis towards actual job placements, rather than stopping at mentoring.
"Our region has lucked into attracting enormously skilled talent from all over the world - and as soon as our own BioBridge program advanced beyond mentoring to actual placement, we saw a huge leap in interest," said George Kairys, managing director, BioBridge.
Where should the funding for such initiatives come from?
Until now, funding for the program Kairys has been running since mid-2009 has come from the government. "But I personally feel funding should start coming from the private sector," he added, indicating thereby employers themselves are looking at sourcing - and are willing to pay for - such talent.
Perhaps that could be the way forward.
Another way forward, Zizys presented in his findings, was to work with employers to increase the number of mid-sector jobs and build career pathways in this industry segment.
"Here in Ontario, manufacturing jobs have served as safety valves particularly for newcomers, who've hitherto taken them as survival jobs in their early years. But the number of such manufacturing jobs is likely to continue falling in the foreseeable future.
"At the same time, there may be limits to the degree the labour market can absorb knowledge workers, and is today already seeing a degree of over-qualification.
"Hence an increase in middle sector jobs could help take up some of the slack," Zizys said in his summation.