Canada's workforce is unquestionably aging as baby boomers swell the ranks of the population, but experts can't agree on whether the shrinking workforce will mean social and economic upheaval.

The 2006 Census numbers on age and sex, which were released on Tuesday, paint a bleak picture:

• Canada has the oldest population in the Americas, but the second-youngest of the G8;
• For the first time in Canada's history, there are four million people aged 65 or older (there are about 32 million Canadians);
• The under-15 share of the population has never been lower, and;
• In 10 years, more workers will be leaving the workforce than entering it.

This trend worries Mark Stabile, director of the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto.

"The problems we are going to have will be funding some of our major social programs. I think that will be a major problem," he told CTV.ca.

"With a small working-age population putting into the tax base, we're going to have a hard time funding things like health care and drugs for seniors. The ratio's just not going to support the current funding arrangements."

Garth Whyte, of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, says his members are already feeling the effects of labour shortages -- without a shrinking workforce.

"It's a tidal wave that's been coming at us for a couple years, and it's fast approaching. It's approaching in terms of time, but it's also approaching from west to east," he told CTV.ca.

The number of member businesses that say a labour shortage is an important issue to them has gone from 40 per cent to more than 50 per cent in the past decade, he said.

Not only that, business owners themselves are aging and planning to quit. "They don't have succession plans," he said. "So not only is there a shortage of labour, there is a shortage of entrepreneurs."

Andrew Jackson, of the Canadian Labour Congress, believes business is whining a bit.

They have had the upper hand over workers for the past 20 years as evidenced by stagnant wages, he said.

"I'm not of the view that labour shortages themselves are a bad thing," he told CTV.ca.

"It may be that we raise productivity and that some badly paid, low-productivity jobs will disappear. But that's not a bad thing. The important thing is to have high employment at decent wages."

But Jackson concedes that society must address the long-term trend.

Storm cloud on the horizon?

Morley Gunderson, an economist and CIBC chair in youth employment at the University of Toronto, said the issue of Canada's aging workforce isn't new to his profession.

Asked if this is a real storm cloud on the horizon, he told CTV.ca, "I don't think there's an easy answer to that. ... It's strong to say it's a tempest in a teapot, but the labour market and employers will probably adjust and adapt reasonably well."

For example, the trend to early retirement has reversed itself since the mid-1990s, he said. Jackson said pension plans are weakening, which will keep some people in the work force past age 65.

Companies will have to learn how to best utilize the talents of their older workers, perhaps by offering flexible schedules and part-time work, Gunderson said.

Strategies that companies and governments can adapt to address today's worker shortages should also help with the long-term problem, he said.

Whyte has a few suggestions for today:

• Changing the Employment Insurance program to put a priority on retraining;
• Better aligning the post-secondary education system's output with business needs, and;
• Improving the immigration system to better match skills with jobs.

"We need to have a strategy ... right now, it's piecemeal," he said, adding all sectors of the economy must be involved in the debate.

"Often I think we reach for quick fixes rather than develop a training culture," Jackson said. Bringing in foreign workers on temporary permits instead of training Canadians is one example of that, he said.

Ottawa should keep in mind that some countries that have so far supplied large numbers of talented immigrants -- such as India and China -- are now starting to develop strong domestic economies, Gunderson said.

"It's getting harder and harder for us to compete for skilled immigrants" as the wage gap narrows, he said. The phenomenon of outsourcing business services means people in India, for example, can do the work there instead of immigrating here, he added.

Gunderson said while an aging, shrinking workforce poses challenges and some sectors might be hit worse than others, "both employers and employees will adjust." People should also know that this is a foreseeable problem, not a shock to the economy, he said.

"I think it's good these things are being raised, maybe even in an alarmist fashion, to get people's attention. But having said that, I think the fact that it will get people's attention means it won't be an apocalypse," he said.

Laurent Martel, senior analyst for Statistics Canada, agrees.

"There are countries that are much older than Canada. One person out of five is age 65 or older in Japan. I don't see any major problems in Japan, regarding economy or the society in general," said Martel.

"Population aging means a different population with different needs, but we have time to adapt."

With files from The Canadian Press