Investing in Canada's Workforce

Continuing Canada’s past decade of successful economic and employment growth requires the creation of an inclusive, adaptable and mobile workforce. More than ever before – with an aging workforce and new emerging global competitors – Canada must focus on maximizing the skills of all its people. These investments are designed to achieve this goal by driving collective action by individuals, employers, unions, training institutions, communities and governments.

The Government of Canada proposes to reach new partnership agreements with provinces and territories and invest $3.5 billion over this year and the next five years, on a per-capita basis, in six priority areas:

• Promote workplace skills development to help existing workers increase their earning potential and ensure that they and their employers can more effectively adapt to technological and other market-driven realities;
  
  
• Improve apprenticeship, including pre-apprenticeship, to ensure that more young people can enter and complete apprenticeship programs and that journeypersons can continuously upgrade their skills;
  
  
• Allow recent immigrants to obtain recognition of their credentials and past work experience and find jobs that match their skills and experience;
  
  
• Assist other Canadians who continue to face specific workforce barriers to fully participate. These groups include persons with disabilities, laid-off older workers, and young people trying to enter the labour market for the first time;
  
  
• Enable Aboriginal Canadians to develop their skills and gain the work experience they need to fully participate in Canada’s workforce; and
  
  
• Increase access to literacy and essential skills for new and existing workers to help them undertake more specific occupational training programs and find jobs.
  

This represents the most significant investment in skills development in a decade –annual investments by the Government of Canada will increase by $809 million by 2009–10, representing an increase of 30%.

These proposed investments recognize and address the gaps in current Employment Insurance programming ($2.1 billion of current expenditures). The existing program is not designed to meet the needs of individuals with little or no recent work experience, of those in non-standard work, and those currently employed who need to upgrade their skills.

Substantive work with provinces and territories over the past two years, with input from employers, unions, Aboriginal organizations, training institutions, community organizations and others, has identified six areas for action and strategic investment.

Canada needs a labour market system that can match supply (skilled workers) to demand (skilled jobs) no matter where they live in Canada. The system has to respond to changing local, regional, national and global realities and support the mobility and adaptability of Canadian workers.

To improve labour market efficiency, the Government of Canada also proposes measures totalling $65 million to enhance labour market information and improve labour mobility across the country.

• Canadians need better quality labour market information, especially at the regional and local level. The Government of Canada proposes to work with provinces and other partners to reduce barriers to mobility and ensure employers have the information and tools they need to help them to find and assess the skills of workers, wherever they exist across Canada.

Investing in Canada’s Workforce – Creating Opportunities for All Canadians.

Apprenticeship
Expanding apprenticeship training is critical to meeting workforce shortages in the skilled trades, such as carpentry and plumbing. To successfully complete apprenticeship training, many young people need apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship support. The proposed investments are critical if Canada is to meet its growing need for skilled tradespeople and technicians.

Recent Immigrants
Foreign credential recognition is key to ensuring that immigrants to our country are able to fully use their talents, and Canada is able to reap the benefits of their skills.

Let’s take an example of a professional couple newly arrived from India. One is an engineer, the other a financial advisor. Each has a university degree, excellent technical skills and ten years experience. Neither can get work in their field because their qualifications are not recognized.

These proposed investments will help this couple upgrade their skills as needed, connect to employers in their fields, integrate into Canadian society and contribute to Canada’s growth and prosperity.