Connecting work to education is key during COVID-19 and beyond

 By Larry Rosia COVID-19 has disrupted labour markets unlike anything since the Great Depression. Young people – tomorrow’s workforce – have been especially hard hit by the economic slowdown, with school closures and a transition to remote learning. Youth were also among the hardest hit when employers reduced operations. One of the biggest

A resilient workforce is priority one

 By Sarah Watts-Rynard and Leah Nord As governments across Canada plan for post-pandemic reset and recovery, ensuring businesses have workers with the skills to help them transform and innovate should be a foremost priority.  A resilient labour market is the answer to two important challenges ahead: it stands to reconnect

Elder care reform must start with skills training

 By Sarah Watts-Rynard When it comes to tragedy, the human instinct is to assign blame. In the case of pandemic-induced deaths in Canada’s long-term care facilities, there are no end of culprits: governments for regulatory and oversight failures, owners and managers for poor employment practices, workers for abandoning their posts. Regardless of

Colleges and polytechnics key to business innovation

 By: Sarah Watts-Rynard and Denise Amyot Canada is at an innovation crossroads. Productivity measures have long lagged our international counterparts and, as a country of small businesses, our firms often lack the internal resources to fulfill their potential.  Developing new prototypes, adopting new technologies and designing new processes takes time, money and human resources. As Canada’s economic

How applied research is reclaiming urban industrial sites

 By Cody McKay Outstanding discovery research occurs at universities across the country.  However, far too often, this research fails to arrive at the commercial market place.  Consecutive governments have attempted to tackle this challenge, focusing research dollars on particular aspects of the research-innovation ecosystem.  This has left those not in

Skill mismatches and over-qualification block job opportunities for Canadians

 By Nobina Robinson Recently Statistics Canada released their comprehensive reports on education, covering a wide range of topics, including overall education attainment and the skills mismatches and earnings potential of bachelor’s degree graduates in Canada. There was good news and bad news. Among many notable data points, StatsCan reported that in

How a program retraining Canada’s veterans offers solutions for the mid-career worker

 By Nobina Robinson The world of work as we know it is changing – rapidly.  The “gig economy” and “automation” are just two phenomena shaping our working future.  Jobs are being “unbundled” and tasked out, piecemeal, across the globe.  And emerging technologies are changing the ways we interface with our