Pathways to the Trades and Technologies
On January 20th, the TTB, in partnership with Humber College, Toronto Employment and Social Services and the North Etobicoke Revitalization Partnership (NERP), held a one-day forum on the trades and technologies. Participants heard about career opportunities at Toronto Hydro and as arborists in addition to learning about how to get into apprenticeships and the skilled trades. Humber College was the gracious host of the event.
Labour Market News
The Daily
Statistics Canada
January 9, 2009
In Ontario, employment growth in 2008 matched that of the national average (+0.6%), with all of the growth in part-time work. The increase in part-time employment in 2008 was due to a rise in involuntary part-time workers, who prefer full-time work but were unable to find it. Over the same period in 2008, Ontario's unemployment rate rose 0.7 percentage points, reaching 7.2% in December. Most of the manufacturing declines in Ontario in 2008 occurred in food, chemicals, plastics and rubber, machinery, and transportation equipment manufacturing. Since the start of the decline in 2002, manufacturing employment in Canada has fallen 380,000 (-16.3%).
The Canadian Press
January 25, 2009
Faced with a declining demand for travel, Air Canada will cut another 345 jobs, mostly among its 5,700 flight attendants, beginning March 2. As part of the downsizing, the airline says it will have one less flight attendant in business-class cabins on transatlantic flights. As demand declines, Air Canada is also reducing the number of flights on some routes, and using smaller aircraft on others. Air Canada currently employs about 26,600 workers across the country.
The Etobicoke Guardian
Tamara Shephard
January 22, 2009
A new job action centre opened recently in Etobicoke will help transition to new employment 375 laid off workers of the Consumers Glass plant. Funded by Owens-Illinois Canada Corp., the provincial government and the Canadian Auto Workers, the centre will help laid-off workers with job search, and offer information about retraining programs and community support services. Employment strategies are offered through numerous community agencies working at the centre, such as JobStart, VPI and Humber College, which will help with career exploration, academic upgrading, as well as skills training and apprenticeships.
Toronto Star
January 15, 2009
The Mentoring Partnership (thementoringpartnership.com)
An award-winning initiative of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC) that matches skilled immigrants with established professionals in occupation-specific mentoring relationships.
Career Bridge (careerbridge.ca)
A program of Career Edge Organization connects employers and skilled immigrants through paid internships ranging from four months to one year.
Consortium of Agencies Serving Internationally-trained Professionals (casip.ca)
This eight-member group of agencies works collaboratively to co-ordinate employment and training services for skilled immigrants within the GTA.
More resources.....
Youth
Inside Toronto
Cynthia Reason
January 20,
2009
A program aimed at lowering Rexdale's high school drop-out rate, a longtime educator and coach, and an aspiring young peacemaker are among the local honorees at this year's Rotary Club of Toronto West Youth Impact Awards.Pathways to Education, a program that originated in Regent Park and expanded into Rexdale in September 2007, is being honoured in the community organization category. Pathways is a community-based program designed to reduce poverty by lowering the dropout rate among high school students from economically disadvantaged communities (the drop-out rate in Regent Park has dropped from 56 to just 10 per cent since Pathways' inception) and increasing their participation in post-secondary programs (around 80 per cent of students graduating from the program go on to college, university or apprenticeships).
Education
The Canadian Press
January 20, 2009
A tough economy is being cited as the reason behind record-level university application numbers in Ontario.The Council of Ontario Universities says 84,300 applications have been submitted this year — a 1.1-per-cent increase over a record set in 2008. The figure is 42 per cent higher than the 59,197 applications made in 2000. More people see a university degree as key to a successful career, particularly when economic conditions are challenging.
Toronto Star
Laurie Monsebraaten
January 25, 2009
Millions of Canadian workers pay employment insurance premiums their entire working lives giving little thought to what would happen if they lost their jobs tomorrow. But as the global economic crisis deepens, tens of thousands facing layoff are learning the cruel truth.
Cuts in the early 1990s mean barely half of the country's unemployed today and fewer than a quarter in Toronto are eligible for benefits. Those lucky enough to qualify often get far less than poverty-level incomes. And for almost everyone scrambling to find work as the economy crumbles, benefits run out too soon.
Toronto Star
Editorial
January 29, 2009
A program meant to train injured Ontario workers so that they can resume productive work is, in some cases, a waste of money, a waste of time and a waste of people. Given what is at stake, workers, unions, companies and the public should be told the full extent of this failure. Imagine a bureaucracy willing to pay a private school $33,000 – more than the cost of a four-year University of Toronto undergraduate degree – to train an injured worker for an $11-per-hour job. Then, despite that worker's best efforts, he remains unemployed. That's what happened to a workers, who lost his job in a tortilla factory after developing an allergy to wheat and rye. And he isn't alone...
Related articles: A Jobs Program That Fails, Critics denounce `farcical' training plan
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VOLUME 12
TTB Higlights
- Labour Market News
- Immigrants
- Youth
- Education
- Other News
TTB Resources
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Statistics Canada
Diane Galarneau, René Morissette
December 22, 2008
During the 1991 to 2006 period, the proportion of immigrants with a university degree in jobs with low educational requirements increased, not only among recent immigrants but also among established ones. The increases for established immigrants suggest that the difficulties, which have long plagued recent immigrants, are not necessarily temporary. Changes in the profile of established immigrants - particularly language and country of origin - accounted for only a quarter of the deterioration for established immigrants.
Statistics Canada
Perspectives
on Labour and Income
Jane Lin
Manufacturing employment in Canada, as in the United States, has been on a long downward trend. Employment is increasing in the service sector whereas once prominent manufacturing industries such as steel, autos, textiles and clothing, and furniture have been shedding jobs. Retail trade had been the largest creator of new jobs but was surpassed in 2007 by construction, and health care and social assistance.
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