Group Presentation December 7, 2006

· There was a comment that those who are working and wanting help with training and education have less support for improving skills because eligibility for government programs requires that candidates be unemployed for a certain length of time;
· A comment was made about student who want to take shop courses in grade 11 in the present high school setting have difficulty changing to shop courses and still graduate because they do not have the prerequisites to enter shop required to graduate. These individuals would be required to take the prerequisite lower grade courses to get eventually get into the high level shop courses required to graduate. A comment was made that we are putting a lot of pressure on 14 and 15 year old students to decide on a career and if they decide on an academic career at that age but change their mind to take a trade or vocation when they are 16 or 17 years old, they may not be able to graduate on time.
· Project Agriculture has been a positive initiative to attract young workers to Agriculture;
· Agriculture is providing entry-level work, often for family and neighborhood workers, until they find better or higher paying jobs;
· Recruiting success has been found by attracting people from Manitoba, likely due to similar lifestyle between Manitoba and our region.

November VCLMP Steering Committee Meeting

November VCLMP Steering Committee Meeting Presentation:

· Several notes of interest being: offering Career Assessment Workshops; trying to recruit within the community; and build up community members by on the job training and advancement;
· Discussion on the population break point (5,000-6,000) being approached where service such as better recreation facilities and more specialized business services need to be developed.
· Comment that trades training offered by technical institutes in the classroom for 5 to 6 hours is appropriate because of the additional 2-3 hours of homework required nightly to cover the course material;
· Comments that immigration may not be the ultimate strategy because there are global forces raising the demand for labour throughout the world. This thought supports developing the local labour market to alleviate shortages.

Recent Labour Market Comments

Nov. 24 Construction Sector Presentation:

A Discussion ensued on the following topics:
· Incentives being used in the “oil patch” such as signing bonuses and job completion bonuses;
· Recruiting outside the country, in the past Canadian labour has been sought after around the world and now the market is such that Canada is seeking labour. This was identified as a normal trend in the world economy.
· Need to promote trades in the high schools by educators and employers;
· Employers are currently recruiting labour out of the high school;
· Need to have local trades training so that students are not distracted by out of town socializing while attending technical institutes. Comment that the educators providing trades training are not providing long enough class times during the day to keep students focused on the training and to keep the time needed to complete training to a minimum. Experienced trades people are saying that current trades courses offer 5.5 hours of class time per day and in years past students were offered 8 hours of class room instruction.

We would like some comment from those who have recently attended trades training to find out if student work load is appropriate or if training time could be reduced by having more instruction each day.

Do those attending trades training programs have lots of opportunity to socialize because trades training workloads are too light?

Comments and Discussions from some Vanderhoof Employers

In a meeting of some Vanderhoof small business employees held Nov. 21, 2006 the following comment and discussions were recorded:

· Costs of recruiting high for employers, small employers have limited resources to spend on advertising positions and recruiting potential employees;

· Response to recruitment ads is higher when Vanderhoof is not mentioned but “Central BC location” or “BC Interior location is used”- appears people do not respond as much to small town ads. Solution could be to advertise away from bigger centers and in areas where the lifestyle is similar to Vanderhoof;

· There was comment that people in other rural and small town areas in Western Canada would be more likely to answer ads and relocate in Vanderhoof;

· Smaller business have limited resources to spend on recruiting:

· Bringing people long distances to visit the community during the interview process;

· Utilize the strength that people generally have strong ties to the community (37% of Vanderhoof residents surveyed have moved away and come back) likely for life style and community tie reasons;

· There was comment that there is a chance that committing resources to training workers, especially in a trade that takes a long time, can be costly and risky due to people leaving the community. But, there are high costs associated with attracting people to the community from outside also: (advertising, interviewing, relocating people etc.)

· There was discussion and comment about the “poaching” of employees by local employers. One comment was made that this is not so bad as long as workers stay in the community, the community will benefit. The analogy was used that if Employer A has an employee that has achieved the highest employment level (experience and training) that the employer A has to offer, and if there is another job offered by employer B in town that is suited to the employee and would allow that employee to advance their career, then the community has benefited by the mobility of the employee. The benefit to local business is that the employee has stayed in the community and there is the potential for the employee to come back to Employer A at a high level position. The survey data has shown that the advancement and training opportunities are the major reasons that employees leave. The discussion was not so much about keeping worker with a single employer but making sure employers are aware that in today’s times it is more important to keep workers in the community. To do this we need local access to career related education and training (community members surveyed supported this and are expressing a need for it) and we need local opportunities for employees to be trained and advance in their careers. This will take advantage of the strong ties (family and lifestyle) that local people have to the community. There was recognition that employers need to work together to keep a strong and dynamic local labour supply.

Here it is, a place for you to give us your input.

First off, what is the VCLMP? In short, 2 surveys were completed in the Vanderhoof area, one by employers last spring and one by community members this fall. Why? We want to know what employers are facing in terms of labour market shortages and what you the community are thinking of, in terms of training, education, and living in the Vanderhoof area.

The final report is being posted within the next week via our main web site: cfdcsn.ca. Have look through it and give us your comments.
In the meantime, we have held some meetings with some employers and they have commented on the Vanderhoof Labour Market. See the next posting for their comments and feel free to add your own comments here on the blog.