Too many workers still slip “through the cracks” of continuing training policies, finds a study, including those who need help the most.
“As the labor market is recovering from the pandemic, adult training will be a key factor in the ability of individuals to adapt to the new skills that will be required there,” observed the authors of a new study on the subject unveiled by the CD Howe Institute on Tuesday. However, “still without an overall vision of lifelong training, Canada is still lagging behind the best countries in terms of assistance for skills development. [Quant] the long-term unemployed and low-skilled workers are slipping through the cracks ”.
We already knew that automation, digital technologies and the aging of the population were in the process of disrupting the labor market, it is recalled. Then came the pandemic, which accelerated these trends in addition to sowing in its wake a procession of unemployed people, many of whom have now been unemployed for months.
We should normally be able to count on vocational training assistance programs, such as this new Canadian Training Allowance (ACF) set up in 2019 or this $ 2.5 billion investment over five years in the development of skills promised in the last federal budget. However, the ACF is not intended for unemployed people who are looking for a way to re-enter the labor market, and the amounts offered ($ 250 per year) may seem very small.
As for the billions of skills development programs, they go largely through companies, which tend, in this area, to favor their most qualified employees, because also offering continuing training to others represents a lower return on investment. interesting. Yet this is far from the case for society, not only in terms of economic growth and productivity, but also in terms of social benefits.
Data to see clearly
In this context, says CD Howe, Canada should draw inspiration from the best in the field, such as the countries of Northern Europe, Germany or Singapore, by giving itself an overview and by offering, if necessary , directly from aid to workers who are more vulnerable or more at risk. But, to do this, it will have to start by collecting the data that it lacks again and again in order to have a precise picture of the situation on the ground as well as of the effectiveness of its policies.
This lack of data, although elementary, stems in particular from another gap, explained in a telephone interview to the To have to Emna Braham, Deputy Director of the Institut du Québec. The world of vocational training is far richer and more diverse than that of schools or even that of universities. There is still a lot of work to be done to define the thousand and one possible skills and establish a form of attestation of prior learning recognized everywhere.
If the most vulnerable workers and a large number of SMEs often find themselves left behind, it is because governments do not always take into account the costs imposed on them by their programs, in terms of lost working hours and reconciliation. work-family or simply transport to training places, notes the expert from the Institut du Québec. “More generally, I would say that governments are still learning how to link their economic development and business assistance policies to the issues of workforce training and job transformation. “