Province announces new employment services model in Peel Region

Written By JULIA LLOYD

On Tuesday (July 9) Dufferin-Caledon MPP Sylvia Jones announced a new employment services model for Peel Region, beginning this fall. 

Ms. Jones was joined by MPP for Brampton South, Prabmeet Sarkaria, to make the announcement at The Learning Place, an organization that provides literacy education and programming in Peel Region. 

The new model is being launched in three local communities: The Region of Peel, Hamilton-Niagara and Muskoka-Kawarthas. The rest of the province will move towards this new employment system starting in 2022. 

“The new localized delivery model offers great opportunities for Peel. It allows us to better help job seekers find and keep good jobs, and to help employers find and recruit the workers they need to grow their business,” said Sylvia Jones. 

She added, “We're improving a vital set of services to keep Peel and Ontario open for business and open for jobs.” 

The new employment services model will create an easy and efficient system to meet the employment needs of all businesses, communities and job seekers, including those on social assistance or with disability. 

The new model will deliver employment services in a way that will match the needs of the local economy of each community the services will serve. The model will select service system managers who will plan and deliver employment services at local levels and will receive funding based on achieving results. 

The selection of service system managers for the prototype regions will be determined through a competitive process later this summer and will be open to any public, not-for-profit or private sector organizations. 

“We want all Ontarians to have the skills they need to get a good job. That is why our government is creating a stronger employment services system for Ontarians, including those on social assistance.” Explained Ross Romano, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.

MPP For Brampton West, Amarjot Sandhu said, he was pleased to see that Peel Region was chosen as one of the first to pilot of the new approach to employment services. 

“For the last 30 years, The Learning Place has provided education and programming with a vision to empower our community to achieve better quality of life,” said Executive Director of The Learning Place. “Today's announcement by the government of Ontario shares that same vision, to across fundamental skills for good quality jobs.”

On Feb. 12, 2019 the Ontario government announced its plan to modernize the provinces employment services. 

In the next five years, one in five new jobs in Ontario are expected to be in trades-related occupations. 

Last month, the Toronto Region Board of Trade, the Metcalf Foundation and United Way Greater Toronto, released a report addressing the province's ongoing work to address the skills mismatch between available jobs and job seekers. 

 The report showed that up to 60 percent of Canadian employees experience skill mismatches - they have either higher skills or lower skills than there job demands.

“The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said it finds 35 per cent of the skills required for jobs across industries will change by 2020,” the report states.