Workforce Central Canada…
Leading a Thoughtful Approach to Strengthen
Canada’s Post-Pandemic Workforce
Canada has undergone significant shifts over the last 40 years, including recessions, energy constraints, and the offshoring of production activities to lower-cost jurisdictions. We have seen the implementation of innovative solutions to strengthen our goods-producing sectors, and our ability to deliver products and services to meet consumer demand. Agriculture, manufacturing, life sciences, clean energy and nano technologies are but a few of the areas where innovation has met invention, advancing our abilities to grow, produce, build, and offer hope. While research, strategic planning and collaborative efforts have been instrumental in understanding and responding to these shifts and the impact on our economy and on our workforce, so too has our recognition that to succeed we must be responsive, resilient and take calculated risk.
While the world’s attention is currently focused on the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, workforce development professionals need to be looking ahead to the crucial need for strategies and approaches to support post-pandemic recovery for employers, workers and job seekers. This planning must align with and support the broader economic development recovery that will be critical locally, provincially, and nationally.
Many of the issues we currently face are unprecedented. And, importantly, they come following a decade of increasingly blurred distinctions between skilled and non-skilled work. When coupled with an aging workforce, the skills now demanded by employers exert considerable pressures on the supply side of the labour market equation. The challenge is bringing these pieces of the puzzle together – and this starts with having the necessary understanding of what skills are required, and how this differs from industry to industry, and geographic region to geographic region.
This is a global issue. These very same labour market pressures are being felt in countries around the world. Without a unified, national approach we can expect an eventual and polarizing workforce trend that will create a major barrier to Canada’s economic development and growth.
Canada can benefit from a committed stance on workforce development. The time to enable workforce intermediaries and their stakeholders to work together is now. Workforce Central Canada is working to build capacity among interested stakeholders through conversation, collaboration, shared learning and knowledge exchange.
