Job Links still offering support, from a distance

Like with everything else, the work of the team at Job Links has a little different these days than it was just over a month ago, but the mission of the organization remains the same: to help English-speaking Canadian citizens or permanent residents in the Eastern Townships to understand, access and succeed in the job market.

“We are still offering the same services, the only difference is they are offered virtually; through phone, e-mail and zoom meetings,” shared Courtney Nichols, the Job Links Secretary. “We are also trying to help our clients navigate through their new situations and offer encouragement and mental health support.”

Those services include assistance with job searches and interview techniques, career counseling, and networking, and are offered to somewhere in the range of 200 people across the Estrie region at any given time.

According to team member Jessica

Girard, Job Links began in 1995 as a project of Townshippers’ Association but has transformed over the years since into its own entity.

“We were a Townshippers’ project, and then we became our own project,” said Girard, explaining that the work is now supported in large part and managed through the Eastern Townships School Board, although the organization maintains active and important partnerships with Townshippers’ and the Carrefour Jeunesse Emploi (CJE) youth employment network. In many ways the work of Job Links is similar to that of the CJE, but Joblinks has a specific mandate to serve English speakers.

Before the coming of the pandemic, Girard said that she was on the road three days a week trying to meet clients in their own communities in recognition of the fact that not having easy access to the job market can make mobility between rural communities a challenge.

“We try to be a flexible as possible,” she said.

Obviously that flexibility has taken a hit under the distancing regulations imposed by the provincial government, but aside from trying to maintain connections remotely the team has also been sharing a number of local resources through its Facebook page since the isolation period started in an effort to reach as many people as possible.

Over the years, Girard said that working with English speakers in the region has increasingly meant work with recent immigrants, often through direct intervention at the New Horizons Adult Education Centre in Sherbrooke and the Lennoxville Vocational Training Centre. This work, she explained, means helping individuals with diverse educational backgrounds and variable language skills.

“We’re right in there to help them to transition to the workforce,” she said, emphasizing how much easier it is to make direct and helpful connections from within a school environment.

Although one would think that the much-discussed labour shortage in

Quebec would make it easy for anyone to get a job, Girard pointed out that for people who are not necessarily skilled at going and getting jobs, the shortage actually makes things more difficult.

“There are so many people applying,” she said, pointing out that the reality of the labour shortage is not actually a lack of potential workers, but an excess of jobs. That being the case, employers are able to be more selective about hiring, which often leaves those people who Job Links seeks to work with by the wayside.

Prior to the start of the pandemic, the Job Links Team had plans to be present at a number of job fairs and outreach events over the coming months, but with the entire concept of conventions and community gatherings on hold for the foreseeable future, the organization is left to do what it can from a distance.

For more information about the work of Job Links and the assistance it offers visit http://joblinks.etsb.qc.ca/