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This chapter draws profiles of Nova Scotia EBSM participants and non-participants. Its value is to give the reader a good understanding of the program and its clients in advance of presenting outcomes and impacts.

Data were drawn from the follow-up surveys and Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) administrative databases. Demographic information such as age, gender, mother tongue, and ethnicity were drawn from the administrative files. Where administrative data are not available or incomplete (for example, the education data are not available on all clients) survey results are presented.

The main thrust of the analysis to follow is to compare participants in the five components with each other and with non-participants. It begins with a brief look at the number of clients by component⁷. The chapter then turns to client demographics, followed by an examination of overall client satisfaction with EBSM.

7.1 Number of Cases by Component

In total, 10,956 individuals participated in Nova Scotia EBSM with a start date after January 1, 1997 and an end date before or on June 30, 1998, the time period designated for the study.⁸ Because some clients participated in two or three different EBSM interventions, the total number of interventions exceeds the number of individuals participating.

To avoid counting any individual more than once in the analysis, all multiple intervention participants were classified into one component as follows: Since the total number of Self-Employment cases was low, all individuals who participated in it were designated as Self-Employment, even if they also participated in a different EBSM. All other multiple-intervention individuals were assigned to the component with fewest cases. That yielded the distribution in the last column of Table 7.1.

About 5 percent had more than one different type of EBSM intervention. In total 553 clients had two different EBSM interventions and 18 had three during the study period. Three-quarters of those who had multiple different interventions began in a Purchase of training course: the usual pattern was Purchase of training to Employment Assistance Services to Targeted Wage Subsidies.

With a start date on or after January 1, 1997 and an end date on or before June 30, 1998, there were 294 Job Creation Partnerships and 221 Local Labour Market Partnerships in Nova Scotia.

According to administrative data the average (mean) number of weeks spent in EBSM was 16.3 weeks (including multiple interventions). The mean differed by component (Table 7.2) ranging from 10.2 weeks for Employment Assistance Services interventions and 20.8 for Self-Employment.

Region

Chart 7.1 shows the distribution of EBSM clients by region of the province. Although the largest proportion of clients reside in the Halifax Metropolitan area — as might be expected on the basis of population — the overall distribution is fairly even across the four regions.

Distribution by region of the province differed somewhat across EBSM components (Table 7.3). Purchase of training predominated in all four regions, but beyond that each region tended towards a different component: Job Creation Partnerships in Industrial Cape Breton, Employment Assistance Services in Halifax Metro; Targeted Wage Subsidies in South-Shore Valley and Northern Nova Scotia.

As Table 7.4 shows, use of Local Labour Market Partnerships was predominant in the Northern zone. The greatest percentage of Job Creation Partnerships was in Halifax Metro.

7.2 Demographics

Gender

As the female/male ratio of non-participants suggests, the population of those eligible for EBSM is slightly more male than female. Yet two-thirds of those who participated in EBSM during the study period were men (Chart 7.2). The only component that women and men were equally likely to use was Employment Assistance Services. The ratio of men to women in the Purchase of training option was 7 to 3.

Age

The average age of EBSM participants was 35 years; non-participants were somewhat older on average, 39.6 years (Table 7.5). Self-Employment clients were the oldest on average, Purchase of training clients the youngest.

Language

English was the mother tongue for about 99 percent of those participating in EBSM (although data was missing for about 10 percent of the cases). Only 0.3 percent said their first language was French and still only spoke French.

Participants most comfortable speaking French were asked in the survey if they received employment services in the language of their choice. Eleven percent said no (but note this represents only three respondents).

Ethnicity

Approximately 3 percent of EBSM participants were coded as belonging to a visible minority group. There was little difference across components.

Nearly 4 percent of participants were Aboriginal. There was more of a difference by component in this target group, ranging from 1 percent of Targeted Wage Subsidies clients to 10 percent of Job Creation Partnerships clients.

Disability Status

Some 7 percent of participants and 9 percent of non-participants affirmed that they were limited in the kind or amount of work they could do because of a long-term physical condition, mental condition or health problem. The proportion of participants with disabilities differed significantly across EBSM components: 15 percent of Employment Assistance Services, 14 percent of Self-Employment, 7 percent of Targeted Wage Subsidies, 6 percent of Purchase of training and 4 percent of Job Creation Partnerships clients had a disability.⁹

7.3 Overall Satisfaction with EBSM

Chart 7.3 displays clients' overall level of satisfaction with EBSM. As is evident, most participants (78 percent) thought EBSM was good or excellent. Few gave the program a failing grade (4 percent) or a D (5 percent). The mean overall grade was B.¹⁰ Clients in every EBSM component gave a mean overall grade of B, except for Employment Assistance Services clients who gave a B-.

Women rated EBSM slightly higher than did men: B + versus B.¹¹ Northern Nova Scotia clients and South Shore-Valley clients gave EBSM a B+; Industrial Cape Breton clients gave a B, Halifax Metro clients gave a B - .¹²

The most often given reason for a low grade was lack of encouragement or help from staff (15 percent). Other reasons included not enough financial assistance (11 percent), not informed about a particular service (11 percent), lack of help finding employment (9 percent), too long a wait for service or check (8 percent), bad outcome (7 percent), would not continue funding (5 percent), did not receive assistance sought (4 percent), not enough available staff (4 percent), poor program organization (4 percent), and poor service (4 percent).

The next table lists the mean grade given to EBSM by its clients in achieving its major goals. Results are presented by EBSM component. Purchase of training clients were most pleased with the program: they were significantly happier with their intervention than were Employment Assistance Services clients.¹⁴

By EBSM goal, the lowest grades by a considerable margin were given to the program's ability to help its clients find a permanent job.

The grade bestowed EBSM for helping to get a permanent job does not necessarily imply that clients were disappointed with how well they were prepared for a new job. In fact, as the next graph demonstrates, 88 percent of the participants felt fairly or very well prepared for a new job as a result of their intervention. The low grade for finding a permanent job may therefore be a comment on client perception of the job market rather than the program.

Footnotes

7	To keep from overwhelming the reader with figures, most of the subsequent tables will include only percentages.
8	There may have been as many as 12,000 individuals. Many were dropped from the analysis because of missing incorrect data in the start and end dates for the intervention. For example, several hundred cases had end dates before the start dates. Others had no end dates.
9	Because survey findings represent a sample of clients rather than the population, we present statistical tests. Here we use a "chi-square," abbreviated f X 2. This is the statistic of choice for nominal data (and is often used for ordinal data as well). It tests for differences between the frequencies that are observed from the sample and those that could be expected if there were no true differences among the categories of the variables; that is, it tests whether the findings are real or the result of sampling error — the aim of any statistical test. The null hypothesis is that the variables are independent of each other. The chi-square depends on the number of rows and columns in the table; it is assessed by the "degrees of freedom," or pieces of information that are free to vary. In this instance, f X 2= 23.4, df=4, p<0.001, so we conclude that the distributions are different across components.
10	Mean grade is calculated by setting A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, and F=5 (the values used in the questionnaire). Equal intervals are established to stand for the average grade: 1 to 1.167=A; 1.168 to 1.5=A-, 1.501 to 1.834=B+; 1.835 to 2.167=B; 2.168 to 2.5=B-; 2.501 to 2.834=C+; 2.835 to 3.167=C; and so on.
11	In this case, we use a "t-test," which is the procedure of choice to compare two means. We present the t value, the "degrees of freedom" (df) for the test, and the probability (p). traditionally when p is less than 0.05, we can reject the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the two groups being compared. For the difference between women and men respecting overall EBSM rating: t = 15.1, df=994, p<0.001. We thus conclude that there is a significant difference.
12	F = 8.4, df = 4/993, p <0.001.
13	The mean on the 5-point scale was 2.04, with a standard error of 0.033.
14	Using Tukey HSD as the post-hoc test for differences between components.