Ontario has smarter plan for POST-COVID reset
Ontario’s economy has been knocked flat by the COVID-19 pandemic and the series of shutdowns imposed by the provincial government. Shutting down the economy was easy. restarting it will be a lot tougher.
In 2020, employment declined by 355,300 jobs, with 288,600 of those in the private sector, according to the latest figures from the province’s Financial Accountability Office. That was a record loss of employment, but even those numbers don’t tell the whole story. Taking into account the number of people who worked fewer hours because of the pandemic, a total of 765,340 jobs have been affected, about 10 per cent of all jobs. Ontario’s January lockdown made the situation even worse, contributing to the loss of 154,000 additional jobs.
Getting people back to work has to be the priority for the Ford government as the pandemic recedes, but the province is facing both a shortage of skilled workers and a surplus of available workers in sectors such as tourism and hospitality, where employment has shrunk dramatically.
before the pandemic, the misfit between jobs and skills in the province was substantial, with 200,000 jobs unfilled because of a lack of trained workers. Shortages are still critical, especially in construction trades and health care.
retraining unemployed workers to meet that demand is a huge challenge, but the provincial government is taking some small but significant steps. Its progress could be limited by the cost of scaling up programs and the persistent public perception that a four-year university degree in some generic subject is far more desirable than training in skilled trades.
For the provincial government, the three potential keys to success are reducing the length of training courses, free tuition and an aggressive awareness campaign to inform people of job demand.
This week’s announcement of free tuition for 6,000 personal support worker (PSW) students is part of that approach. The new plan, which will also provide tuition help to those already in a program, will cost $115 million. This alone will not solve Ontario’s PSW shortage, but it’s the right way to start.
rather than get caught up in imagining a whole new economy, as the federal government has done, the Ford government is pushing to fill the needs we have today.
Labour Minister Monte Mcnaughton has been laying out a series of new or revised programs driven by that sensible principle.
Second Career is a program aimed at those who have lost their jobs during the pandemic. It’s a remarkably good deal, offering to cover up to $28,000 for school expenses and a basic living allowance while taking training. Training programs that take under a year to complete are eligible and the province is looking to community colleges and private business schools to deliver them.
That loosens the publicly funded colleges’ grip on job training and invites them to figure out what training can be completed in 12 months, not the two school years that are more typically the case. The weekly allowance makes it attractive and feasible for those seeking retraining. The program will spend $77 million to train 2,750 workers.
Making trades more attractive is a long-standing PC policy, and the government is taking action. It has a pre-apprenticeship program that will offer a year of classroom instruction and work experience for up to 2,000 young people at a cost of $21 million. The goal is to attract at-risk kids, new Canadians and Indigenous people to trades careers.
The need is pressing, with the construction sector requiring 100,000 workers over the next decade. Another program, getting $20 million in funding, will bring groups of employers together to offer support for apprentices.
underlying all of this is Mcnaughton’s message that not everyone needs a university education to have a successful life and a good income. That has been a tough sell in Ontario, especially among parents and students whose knowledge of the job market is limited to professions and government work. To help counteract that, the provincial government will send trades recruiters into secondary schools this September to broaden students’ awareness.
The next step should be a much wider push to make people job-ready in a shorter time. does college training really require two years, or is that a number that boosts education employment? Worse, colleges have gotten into serious mission creep with their increased offering of bachelor’s degrees. What’s next, a Phd in plumbing?
Public education needs a greater vocational focus, too. The school system has children in its classrooms for 14 years, but they leave with a high school diploma that qualifies them for only the most menial jobs.
Ontarians’ definition of good work needs a reality check. Our economic future depends on it.