With the general election around the corner, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has called on all federal parties to address the growing skills gap in their election manifestos.
“The employment landscape is changing in Canada. The demand for high-skilled workers is growing while the need for low-skilled workers is declining. We need to make every effort to align education with our employment market,” says Perrin Beatty, president and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Federal leaders must not just focus on job creation, but also on cultivating the proper skill sets for the jobs that will be created in the future. To that end, the chamber has highlighted what it believes are the four key areas linked to economic prosperity: access to capital, access to markets, access to a workforce, and access to technology and innovation.
Addressing the issue of foreign workers, the president and CEO of the Alberta Chambers of Commerce, Ken Kobly, says that following the scaling down of the Temporary Foreign Worker program, the government should focus on making sure the Express Entry Program is stable and meets the needs of the economy.
The chambers released a report called Fragmented Systems: Connecting Players in Canada’s Skills Challenge, which analyses the gap between employers and the education system.
