Yes, employers have to work hard and smart to find capable employees.
They have to recognize the known phenomenon of young people not having parents or teachers, thus employers need to fill that role for skills needed to do the job. And operate efficiently – proper employee training and facility maintenance prevents them from losing business and incurring higher costs.
There’s a need for supervised efforts, where someone looks after a few employees in a workplace. When the unemployment rate in eastern Iowa was under one per cent circa 1999 one low security prison took some inmates with a supervisor to a manufacturing plant every day – helpful to the inmates as they learned skills, got real-world experience, and savings to help succeed when they got out. (William Head prison may be doing limited things, certainly takes work into the prison. Does Wilkinson Road jail do anything?)
In contrast, some small businesses in Iowa had to be coached to have employees do things like tidy shelves when there were no customers needing help. Those businesses will whine and mooch for taxpayer funds when the economy cools. Those employees as well.
And businesses here expect government to provide skills training, too cheap to pay for it themselves. (Lack of portable documentation like certificates and better is a problem, though employers should be providing certificates of completion of courses and on-the-job training. And good employers will provide good recommendations for good employees, I don’t see apprentice programs as a good answer.)
One case of a school working with unskilled people was Canadian Aircraft Products in Richmond BC. BCIT’s Sea Island operation taught knowledge, and CAP supervised them on the job doing simple parts of important structures.
There are limited efforts here with individuals who wouldn’t pass normal HR bureaucrat’s tests, but have good work attitudes. Thrifty Foods is one employer deserving commendation. This week I observed a couple of 30ish adults supervised in a library visit, I think they could do good work where they didn’t have to stay on their feet for hours.
I’m told that many elderly people want work but are physically limited. Many could do office or counter with stool work I expect, but I note that some elderly, like some youth, lack good thinking skills – not dementia, just never learned well, perhaps depending on a spouse who has died.
Businesses should look in their mirror to find the solution.
And voters should get government out of the way of employers giving people a chance to prove themselves, while getting real about counselling and education of homeless people – as Medicine Hat Alberta did.
Victoria’s unemployment statistics seem high given claims of jobs going empty, but I caution that statistics can be misleading. I think they miss many people who are willing to work.
Iowa’s low unemployment rate changed economics there – call centres were no longer viable for example. I don’t know how local manufacturers made out. (Like Victoria, there’s much slipperiness in the U.S. Midwest.)
Keith Sketchley
Saanich