Students, presidents, university leaders from many post-secondary institutions, as well as many other attendees, gathered on November 4 in Toronto for the World Education Services symposium, "International Students: The New Skilled Migrants."

The conference discussed the important role international students will soon play in the Canadian skilled labour force. With Canada's changing demographics, more people are retiring than entering the workforce. This will cause gaps in the workforce. According to Tim Owen, director of WES, "These gaps will need to be filled by skilled migrants."

Some of the challenges discussed at the symposium were competition and willingness for international students to stay. With so many countries competing for the best and brightest international students from around the world, Canada needs to promote a smooth and positive experience in transitioning international students into permanent residents.

The federal and provincial governments have already begun this process by making the permanent resident status immediately reachable by graduating post-secondary students. Universities are also trying to figure out what type of support students are looking for.

"The data we have seen supports that one-third of international students stay," Owen said. "I think that is going to increase because I think some of the policies the government has will encourage people to stay." The government has been discussing doubling the amount of international students that study in Ontario because Canada will have a need for skilled labour in the future.

According to Owen, the goal of the conference was to "bring people together to explore the changing role from international students to immigrants."

"The symposium was a chance to hear case studies from people around the country, voices of students and international students, and see the way the program is shaped," Owen said.

This is all good news for international students. Canadian residents, on the other hand, may be wondering what it means for them.

Owen said he thinks optimistically, adding these initiatives shouldn't have an effect on Canadians. "I think it's actually employers that are going to be bending over backwards to find good workers. Maybe over the next year or two it will be a little tight because we're coming out of the recession, but after that I think it'll be a good time to look for work."

The type of labour that will be demanded of skilled migrant workers is currently unknown. The top 10 jobs in demand right now didn't even exist 10 years ago, such as iPhone application developers. Owen said he suspects migrant workers will be in demand for jobs requiring a specific skill set, such as biotechnology, science and health.

Last year, Canada was rated the lowest among the top eight countries for international students in tertiary education; however, Canada's numbers have been increasing steadily every year since 1999.

According to the WES website (wes.org), Ontario's plan to "increase the number of post-secondary international students by 50 per cent over the next five years, from 57,535 in 2009 to approximately 86,000" is a possibility with the government's plan to efficiently integrate the students into Canadian society and the help of university programs.