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HALIFAX — Immigration will have to increase to meet a job crunch that could occur when several large megaprojects ramp up over the next five years, says an official with Nova Scotia's Office of Immigration.

Executive director Elizabeth Mills told the legislature's public accounts committee Wednesday that the current demand for skilled workers is meeting the supply, but that will change rapidly by 2014.

Mills said economic models indicate there could be between 3,000 and 10,000 jobs that will need to be filled as part of the $25-billion federal shipbuilding contract and several other large industrial projects, including the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador.

Economic studies have said the 30-year shipbuilding contract alone will create about 11,000 jobs.

"The gap that we will be identifying . . . will occur after we've exhausted all means to hire Nova Scotians, to repatriate Nova Scotians or to bring other Canadians here," Mills told reporters.

She said the province was putting together a business case for increased immigration levels that would be presented to the federal government.

"Each of the provinces and territories are all doing the same thing," she said.

"(A case) is what will persuade the federal government that more immigration is needed."

Mills said the province would need to increase its numbers through all immigration streams, including its nominee program for skilled workers.

She said demand is high for the current program, which is capped at 500 and has met its target in each of the last two years.

Mills believes numbers could be boosted through other areas like the federal skilled workers stream, which she said has close to a four-year backlog with some 700,000 applications in the queue.

She said the province has offered to help process part of that backlog of applicants.

"Some of these applications have been in that backlog for a long time and they may no longer be interested in immigrating to Canada," she said.

Mills said caps for all immigration streams would likely only rise when Ottawa boosts its overall national cap on immigration, which has fluctuated between 240,000 and 265,000 in recent years.

Recent census numbers indicate that with the oldest population in Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia's working age population is expected to shrink by 36,000 by 2019.

Liberal committee member Andrew Younger said the growing need for skilled workers won't be filled by successfully filling the current cap of 500.

"It's a tiny number," said Younger.

"We need to be successful at hitting numbers in the thousands and, unfortunately, the federal government won't allow us to do that at the moment."

Last April the province announced an immigration strategy which set a goal of doubling the number of immigrants each year to 7,200 by 2020 from the current level of 3,600.