County joins online labour database
Administrator | Aug 30, 2016 | Comments 2
The municipality has partnered with Ryerson University’s new online tool ‘Magnet’ to help address unemployment, underemployment and labour market shortages.
As a member, the County is promised a vast database of skilled labour to help employers find employees. Magnet’s network includes more than 80,000 job seekers, 31 universities and colleges, 7,000 employers and 170 community partners.
Earlier this spring, The County’s Community Development Department initiated a Business Retention and Expansion Program (BR+E) which involved conducting interviews with businesses in the manufacturing, and construction sectors to gather insight into the challenges they face.
“One of the major challenges expressed by the vast majority of employers throughout these interviews was that they were having trouble finding qualified workers,” said Neil Carbone, the County’s director of community development. “Over 60 per cent of the construction and manufacturing sector businesses are anticipated to expand in the next 18 months, with many anticipating hiring 2-5 additional employees.”
Carbone says the future is bright for the County, but it needs to proactively address challenges – including workforce development.
Ryerson’s Magnet initiative was developed in early 2014 to bridge the gap between post-secondary recruitment and the ability of students to match their skills to real labour market needs.
In March, 2015 The Eastern Ontario Regional Network (EORN) partnered with Magnet, allowing any municipality within Eastern Ontario access to this network at no cost. Both the job seeker and employer can apply and search for free, however employers pay $10 per connection made.
Local businesses and job seekers can create an account on The County’s Magnet site by visiting: https://magnet.whoplusyou.com/lp/princeedwardcounty.
Filed Under: Local News
Don’t we already have a government database called Career Edge, who assist with this sort of thing? This County DOES have qualified employees. Training is the issue. This is yet another example of exports taking over the County, and paid to.
I truly hope this is not a disguise to remove opportunities from our young, educated and talented residents; I don’t want to see jobs being given to outside residents simply because of the old hang on “qualified workers”; we need to keep our core families sustained. There are plenty of “qualified” workers if you provide acceptable incentive.