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Jobs crisis looms as boomers retire: Canada statistical agency

AFP

A long-warned of labor crunch caused by aging baby boomers is looming, with a record number of Canadians set to retire, according to data from a 2021 census released Wednesday.

“Never before has the number of people nearing retirement been so high,” Statistics Canada said in a statement, with more than one in five workers (21.8 percent) close to the mandatory or proposed retirement age of 65.

The statement cited the boomer cohort’s exit from the labor force as “one of the factors behind the labor shortages facing some industries across the country.”

Baby boomers — born between 1946 and 1965 — began to retire in 2011, but the rate is now accelerating to an “all-time high,” Statistics Canada said.

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In late 2021, Statistics Canada said in a separate report that there were nearly one million unfilled positions across Canada, more than double the previous year.

Some of the hardest jobs to fill included restaurant staff, construction laborers, nurses and social workers.

According to the census, seven million Canadians — out of a total population of 37 million — are already 65 years or older, and the number of people aged 85 and up is forecast to triple to 2.7 million in the coming decades.

The demographic shift toward an older population is partly due to low fertility, as currently only 1.4 children are born per woman in the country, and gradual increases in life expectancy, Statistics Canada said.

Older Canadians, the agency said, are “staying healthier, active, and involved for longer.”

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Despite this trend, Canada still has one of the youngest populations among G7 countries, after the United States and Britain, the report noted.

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FBI Most Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Mexico and Deported to U.S.

Authorities in Mexico announced Thursday that Samuel Ramírez Jr., a U.S. citizen accused of murdering two women and listed among the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives, was arrested in the northern state of Sinaloa.

Ramírez Jr., 33, was detained Tuesday in Culiacán just 1 hour and 13 minutes after being added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Ten Most Wanted list, the agency said in a statement.

The suspect, who was born in California, has already been deported to the U.S. state of Washington, where he faces charges related to the fatal shooting of two women at a bar in Federal Way in May 2023.

A court issued an arrest warrant for Ramírez in November last year, and the FBI initially offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to his capture, later increasing the amount to up to $1 million.

“To protect individuals’ privacy and ensure continued cooperation from the public, the FBI does not confirm the identity of those who provide information,” the agency said in its statement.

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UN experts warn Nicaragua runs vast transnational network to monitor exiled dissidents

Nicaragua maintains an “extensive” transnational network to monitor and intimidate opposition figures living in exile, affecting “hundreds of thousands” of people, the United Nations Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua warned on Tuesday.

In a statement, the experts said their report “details an extensive transnational architecture of surveillance and intelligence used to monitor, intimidate and attack the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans living abroad.”

The report, which will be presented on March 16 to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, states that the structure maintained by the government of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo includes the army, the police, migration authorities and diplomatic missions.

According to the statement, “the government has arbitrarily stripped 452 Nicaraguans of their nationality, left thousands more exiled in a situation of de facto statelessness, and prevented many from returning to Nicaragua.”

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Trump: ‘We Think It’s True’ Amid Claims Iran’s Supreme Leader Was Killed

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believes multiple reports claiming the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during the U.S. and Israeli offensive against the Islamic Republic are likely true, though he stopped short of confirming the news.

“We have a feeling that the information is correct,” he said, according to NBC News. “I don’t want to say anything definitive until I see it, but we think that’s the case. And many of their leaders have disappeared,” he added.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said there were “many indications” that Khamenei had died in an attack on his residential compound.