| On February 25th over 200 people attended a Forum on the Trades at George Brown College. The event was a partnership with Toronto Social Services (East End), George Brown College, Carpenter’s Local 27 Training Trust Fund, Youth Employment Partnerships and the TTB. The participants came from across the city to hear presentations on the trades and find out how to become an apprentice. This was the first of an annual series of these events.
Labour
Market News
Labour Force Survey
The Daily
Statistics Canada
February 8, 2007
In Ontario, a slight increase in employment brought the unemployment rate down 0.2 percentage points to 6.3% in January. Employment growth over the last 12 months (+1.5%) was below the national average, with gains in a number of service industries tempered by losses in manufacturing, as well as accommodation and food services. In January, accommodation and food services posted its fourth decline in as many months.
Human Resources And Social Development Canada
News Release
February 21, 2008
The Honourable Monte Solberg, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development, and the Honourable John Milloy, Ontario Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, signed a new agreement to help Ontario workers improve their skills and get better jobs. Under the new agreement, the Government of Canada will invest nearly $1.2 billion in Ontario's labour market over the next six years. These funds will help individuals and workers, who are not eligible for training under the Employment Insurance (EI) program to improve their skills. The funding will also help individuals too often excluded from the labour force, including Aboriginal people, immigrants, persons with disabilities, as well as those workers, who lack literacy and essential skills, get the training they need to obtain meaningful and sustainable employment.
Globe and Mail
Judith Maxwell
January 25, 2008
A strong economy can do wonders to create opportunities for most Canadians, but not all. Three provinces have now decided to help the people who are left behind move from poverty to self reliance. Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario are committed to long-term poverty reduction strategies.The isolation of Canada's poorest citizens is striking. Since the United Way of Greater Toronto launched its Strong Neighbourhoods initiative in 2005, residents in Scarborough Village have had many successes in improving recreation, safety, youth opportunities and access to social services. The changes in the Village inspired some members of the Bengali women's social club to take the subway to downtown Toronto for the first time in their lives. It may seem like an ordinary thing to do, but it was extraordinary for those women. And it was a sign that they had gained a sense of belonging to Toronto and to Canada.
Toronto Star
Chris Sorensen
February 28, 2008
Nortel Networks Corp. posted a fourth-quarter loss yesterday and said it plans to slash 2,100 more jobs as it continues to restructure amid declining demand for its telecom equipment. Nortel said it would also move about 1,000 jobs to countries where labour costs are cheaper and prospects for growth are greater. Of the company's remaining 32,550 employees, roughly 7,000 are in Canada, including about 800 in Toronto.
Immigrants
Canada News Wire
February 25, 2008
CIBC has been selected as one of Canada's "Best Employers for New Canadians for 2008." The award recognizes employers from across Canada that lead their peers in creating a workplace that welcomes new Canadians and allows them to make the most of their skills, education and talents. The winners were selected by the editors of Canada's Top 100 Employers and the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council. One of the ways CIBC assists recent immigrants to find jobs is through Career Bridge internships, a program designed to address the dilemma faced by newcomers without Canadian work experience. Under the program, CIBC has supported 18 interns, 70 per cent of whom were successful in securing a permanent position in CIBC after their internship.
ComputerWorld Canada
Rafael Ruffolo
Febuary 26, 2008
Talent Development For Organizational Effectiveness is a new program at Ryerson's Chang School that focuses on helping employers hire and retain foreign trained professionals.
Hiring managers, including those in IT, are having difficulty recruiting internationally-trained employees, according to a new talent development program at Ryerson University. The Talent Development for Organizational Effectiveness (TDOE) program aims to help employers tap into the growing pool of internationally educated immigrants by training HR managers to focus on actual requirements of the job rather than on the candidates’ language proficiency or accent.
Youth
Service Canada
January 22, 2008
Service Canada will fund 16 projects to help at risk youth in the Greater Toronto Area obtain employment or return to school. FoodShare Toronto is one of the 16 community organizations that will receive funding. At FoodShare Toronto, young people who face multiple barriers to employment are participating in a program involving hands-on work experience and employability workshops. The government's contribution of nearly $6 million in funding to these 16 projects will help young people facing barriers to employment find career related job experience, return to school or acquire the skills they need to jumpstart their careers. Participants in the programs will become better equipped to secure and maintain employment or access educational opportunities.
Women
ComputerWorld Canada
Briony Smith
February 16, 2008
Executives from Microsoft, IBM, CIPS and York University discuss strategies to attract more female recruits, family-friendly work environments and the challenges for internationally educated professionals
The skills shortage rages on, but there exists an untapped resource in Canada. Earlier this month, the women of the country’s tech sector gathered at the Information and Communications Technology Council’s “Women in ICT National Forum” in Toronto to discuss ways to attract and retain women in the IT sector. Many women don’t take math- and science-related classes during junior high school, high school, and university, so if they are interested in IT later on, they often are deemed ineligible for positions. The executive director of the Toronto-based Canadian Women in Communications, said, “Employers should try not to punish women for choices made in grades eight or nine.”
Education
Toronto Star
Louise Brown
February 13, 2008
One-third of Ontario high school graduates are failing or struggling with math in their first term at community college, putting them at an "unacceptable risk" of dropping out, new research shows. A study of more than 10,000 students who entered college in 2006 across the GTA discovered 34 per cent scored a D or F in first-term math – a showing so poor that technology and business programs are scrambling to offer more than one-third of incoming students catch-up courses in topics ranging from fractions, algebra, ratio and proportions to linear functions, trigonometry, geometry and using a scientific calculator. It is not just that students can't do the math – many pick the wrong math courses in high school, opting for courses that don't offer sufficiently rigorous preparation, according to the College Mathematics Project, led by researchers at Seneca College.
Other News
Ministry of Training Colleges and Universities
News Release
February 27, 2008
The Ontario government is investing $20 million in the expansion of York University's Glendon Campus to create a Centre of Excellence for French language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. The centre will provide better access to French-language higher education for francophone learners in southern Ontario and strengthen the delivery of collaborative French-language college and university programs. This investment will also allow Collège Boréal to work with York University to expand its enrolment through new collaborative programs and pathways between the two institutions.
Colleges Ontario
News Release
February 28, 2008
More than 300 representatives from business, labour, education and government will gathered March 4 in Toronto to address one of Ontario's most pressing challenges - the shortage of skilled workers. Hosted by the Ontario Workforce Shortage Coalition, the symposium focused on finding solutions by asking participants for ideas on what business, education and government can do to ensure Ontario has the skilled workers it needs to compete in the global economy. The workforce challenge is a significant issue in Ontario. While the province struggles to retrain people who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing and forestry sectors, there are also many employers struggling to find sufficient numbers of qualified people. The challenges will intensify in the years ahead, and it is expected Ontario will be short more than 360,000 skilled employees by 2025.
Canwest News Service
Eric Beauchesne
February 28, 2008
Most of us are not stressed out at work, and we like or even love our jobs, our bosses and our company. Most of us also find workplace technology liberating, not imprisoning. And yet we work to live, not live to work.
Those are among the surprising findings of a global workforce study by Towers Perrin that debunks many common myths about the negative attitudes of workers - especially Canadians - toward their jobs, their workplace and their employers. The global survey of nearly 90,000 workers - including 5,000 in Canada - found an overwhelming 86% of employees in Canada liked or loved their job, 79% their company and an overwhelming 81% their boss. 69% reported being "neutral-to-energized by on-the-job stress." |
VOLUME 2
February, 2008
TTB Higlights
- Labour Market News
- Immigrants
- Youth
- Women
- Education
- Other News
TTB Resources
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