Toronto Workforce Innovation Group Newsletter

TWIG Highlights

Seeing the Bigger Picture: The Need for Digital Literacy, December 13th, 9:00 -11:30, City Hall, Committee Room 2, 100 Queen Street West. This is the second session of the professional development workshops for job developers and employment counsellors. Panelists include David Ticoll, Canadian Coalition for Information, Communication Technology and John McLaughlin, Ontario Literacy Coalition. Please register at info@workforceinnovation.ca

Labour Force Survey

The Daily
Statistics Canada 
December 2, 2011 

Following a large decline in October, employment in Ontario edged up by 17,000 in November. At the same time, the unemployment rate declined 0.2 percentage points to 7.9%. Over the past 12 months, employment in the province has grown by 1.5% (+97,000), slightly higher than the national average of 1.2%.

Toronto Economic Indicators

City of Toronto
December 2, 2011

The unemployment rate for City of Toronto residents increased slightly from 9.0% in October to 9.1% in November 2011. The number of employed City of Toronto residents increased by 7,750 over October 2011. This is the sixth consecutive month in which the number of employed residents increased on a seasonally adjusted monthly basis. The employment rate of City residents aged 15+ years that are employed decreased from 58.5% in October to 58.4% in November 2011.

TIEDI Labour Force Update: TORONTO CMA

Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative
December 2, 2011

A comparison of the Toronto CMA labour market in November 2010 and November 2011 shows that job gains benefited immigrants more than Canadian-born. Immigrants gained 57,500 jobs while Canadian-born lost 48,900 jobs. For immigrants, notable job gains were in health care and social assistance (14,800 jobs), construction (10,300 jobs) and finance, insurance, real estate and leasing (9,500 jobs). Large job losses for immigrants were found in trades (16,100 jobs) and in educational services (3,300 jobs). Overall, these figures indicate a trend of immigrants gaining jobs in the goods-producing sector, with Canadian-born continuing to move out of the manufacturing sector, and immigrants moving into the sector.

Immigrants

Immigrant settlement funds cut for Ontario

Canadian Immigrant
November 29, 2011

The federal government will cut $31.5 million from immigrant settlement services in Ontario in the coming year, while increasing funds to other provinces. About $6 million less will be spent on services to help immigrants in language training, finding jobs and housing in 2012. "Those cuts will make it harder for newcomers to find jobs and contribute to Ontario’s economy, at a time of global uncertainty when Ontario needs everyone at their best" said Charles Sousa, Ontario’s Minister of Citizenship and Immigration in a statement, reacting to the cuts. The federal government says it’s adjusting its funding to fit changing migration patterns.

Women

Construction sector ‘inhospitable’ to women: Conference Board of Canada

Daily Commercial News and Construction Record
Ian Harvey
November 23, 2011

Women have been left behind in the ranks of senior management in both the private and public sectors and the construction industry was singled out as being “inhospitable” a report from the Conference Board of Canada concludes. “Women have made great progress over the past 22 years, but not in the ranks of senior management positions” said Anne Golden, president and CEO of the Conference Board of Canada as she presented the report, Women in Senior Management: Where Are They? The study found that despite increasing participation in the work force, the proportion of women in senior management has “virtually flat-lined over the past two decades.” Conversely, since 1987, men are “two to three times more likely than women to be senior managers and one-and-a-half more times more likely to be middle managers.”

Education

Way too many teachers

University Affairs
Moira MacDonald
November 7, 2011

Over the last five years, Ontario has seen an average of 4,500 teachers retiring annually – but another 12,000 new people are getting certified to teach. About 9,000 of the new teachers are graduates of education faculties at Ontario universities. Besides retirements, other circumstances also cause jobs to open up, but taking everything into account, each year at least 4,000 more new teachers are entering Ontario’s system looking for work than there are positions for them. The effect of an ever-growing pool of job seekers is reflected in a 2010 survey by the Ontario College of Teachers (PDF), the provincial body that licenses teachers. Most neophyte teachers aren’t getting full-time jobs, or anything close. In 2006, 30 percent of teachers in their first year after graduation were either unemployed or underemployed. By 2010, that proportion had more than doubled, to 68 percent. Nearly one in four new teachers got no work at all, up from just three percent in 2006.

Other News

Wealth gap widens to 30-year high

CBC News
December 5, 2011

The gap between earnings by the rich and the poor is widening in almost all OECD countries — including Canada, where the top 10 per cent of Canadians earns 10 times more than the bottom 10 per cent. In a recent report "Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising" the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development indicates  that the average income of the top 10 per cent of Canadians in 2008 was $103,500 — 10 times higher than those in the bottom 10 per cent, who had an average income of $10,260. In the early 1990s, that ratio was at 8-1. The group also found that the richest one per cent of Canadians saw their share of total income increase from 8.1 per cent in 1980 to 13.3 per cent in 2007.

Resources

Personal networks and the economic adjustment of immigrants

Statistics Canada
Derrik Thomas
December, 2011

For two decades, Canada has maintained comparatively high levels of immigration and almost 1 in 4 adults in this country is now foreign-born. Labour market needs are a key consideration in determining how many immigrants are admitted to Canada each year. More immigrants are now selected for their training and job skills and they come from a wider variety of source countries than in the past. Despite being more highly educated, however, recent immigrants are having more difficulty adjusting to the Canadian economy than did their predecessors. It is taking newcomers longer to achieve employment and income levels similar to those of the Canadian-born.In searching for explanations, researchers have looked at aspects of human capital such as language ability, literacy, education and work experience. But these factors do not fully account for the fact that many recent immigrants do not earn incomes commensurate with those of other Canadians.

The Benefits of Hiring Mature Workers

Randstad Canada
November 22, 2011

Many employers believe  that mature workers are too expensive, difficult to train, quick to retire, or prone to become ineffective as they age. And although workers over the age of 50 might not be as experienced with the latest apps as their younger colleagues, Randstad Canada says job applications from older candidates are worth considering. According to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, 10.9% of those aged 65 years or older had jobs in 2010. These "silver collar" employees are expected to continue to work either for their own enjoyment (the social interaction and stimulation of the workplace) or for economic reasons (they haven't saved enough for retirement and need to work). 

NEW ACCESSIBILITY STANDARD IMPROVES CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR EVERYONE

The Accessibility Standards for Customer Service was created under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA) and comes into effect on January 1, 2011.  Ontario is the first jurisdiction in North America to develop mandatory accessibility standards to l identify, remove and prevent barriers for people with disabilities.The legislation requires that businesses be in compliance by January 1, 2012. To comply businesses are expected to ensure people with disabilities are treated with respect and asked if they require assistance. A more detailed description of the Accessibility Customer Standards is found at www.AccessON.ca.