The city's chamber of commerce says businesses will have to fork out more cash for younger workers as predictions call for at least another decade of the territory's labour crunch.

Rick Karp, president of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce, said Monday a recent anecdotal survey conducted by his office showed there will not be enough middle-aged workers to pick up the employment slack left behind by retiring baby boomers.

Karp said the survey of about 70 businesses is the beginning of a larger study and the start of a labour strategy designed to ease the labour woes felt by Yukon businesses.

'It's the beginning of a labour market initiative. We're going through a labour shortage, we all know that,' he said in an interview.

'We're looking at what people are doing to attract employees, we gathered all of this information for the first stage of this report.

'Basically, one thing that we've learned is the Yukon population is aging and we don't have that middle-aged group of 25- to 40-year-olds,' said Karp, a Whitehorse businessman for the last 22 years.

Karp said the study also showed that Generation X employees, born between 1960 and 1980, and Generation Y employees, born between 1980 and 1999, have different workplace expectations that are forcing employers to change the way they do business to keep their staff.

'No longer is the pyramid approach of my way or the highway' going to work,' he said.

'There's attitudinal changes, there's more compensation. Employers have had to listen more and be more flexible with scheduling.'

Karp said the chamber is working with non-government as well as government agencies to come up with a plan.

The chamber, he added, also had input into a more detailed study currently underway by the Yukon Bureau of Statistics.

Bureau director Greg Finnegan said his office began doing a census in late 2006 to gather hard numbers on the territory's labour needs.

'We've done a census of businesses in the Yukon. This was a really big project,' he said.

Finnegan said his office did a survey of 4,200 businesses in the Yukon and gained responses from 3,219.

Some businesses are no longer in operation and 144 'outright refused' to participate in the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs-funded study, he said.

Finnegan said the census asked a number of questions, with many focusing on labour demands.

The subject of the questions, he said, included:

basic labour needs;

vacancies;

whether businesses are looking for skilled and unskilled labour;

where the businesses are recruiting from;

where they advertise; and

whether they target foreign workers.

'Reports on this will be done in a couple of months,' Finnegan said.

He also said the bureau will soon be starting a labour supply study where it will interview people from across the territory to find out about the jobs they have, the jobs they want and skill levels.

He said the labour survey will be taking place between this year and 2009.