Labour Market Transition Project
The Electricity Sector Council partnered with other sector councils to identify pools of skilled workers presently employed in declining sectors and assess the barriers to hiring employees from other sectors. ESC headed the research into the opportunities, challenges and feasibility of easing short and medium-term labour demands in the electricity sector by engaging workers from sectors that have a surplus labour supply.
The project involved comparing occupations across sectors, isolating key transferable skills, naming career-training and development resources, analyzing current recruitment practices, and recommending ways to ease workers' transitions from one sector to another.
For more information about the Labour Market Transition Project, contact Electricity Sector Council at (613) 235-5540 or by email at info@brightfutures.ca.
Results
Declining industries in Canada prove to be an unrealistic source of significant skilled labour for the electricity sector according to extensive research performed through the Electricity Sector Council's Labour Market Transition project.
The 2004 Sector Study performed by the Canadian Electricity Association and HRSDC, recommended the Electricity Sector Council perform research into the potential of transitioning workers from declining industries into the electricity sector. The Electricity Sector Council initiated a Labour Market Transition project.
The Electricity Sector Council's report, Skill Shortages and Labour Market Transition Measures in the Canadian Electricity Sector shows that because of the extensive training and technical skills required for electricity sector jobs, there is limited potential to recruit significant numbers of workers from declining industries. Instead, the report recommends that the most effective ways of developing and sustaining a strong electricity workforce include targeting youth, valuing existing employees and analyzing the international labour market.
Because of the specific nature of electrical training, the research indicated that even already skilled tradespeople could require six to 10 years to fully develop their skills to effectively integrate into the electricity industry. In many cases, the workers in other sectors have already completed several years of training and those most skilled, and therefore more easily adaptable to the electricity sector, are often older and soon approaching retirement themselves.
Increasing the supply of interested and capable electricity sector employees, the report suggested, can also occur by targeting demographics which are currently underrepresented in the sector. The report indicated Aboriginal Canadians and women are examples of underrepresented peoples in the industry whose contributions to the industry would have great effects.
While there is marginal opportunity for cross-sector recruitment, the Electricity Sector Council will focus on these recommendations to continue strengthening the Canadian electricity workforce.