Our Niagara community is working hard to create exciting opportunities for people to grow their careers within local employers. The Niagara Workforce Coalition is leading these efforts by bringing together employers, education services, employment and community organizations to build a workforce that is ready for the future.
Our goal is to make sure jobs in Niagara are fair, inclusive, and stable while helping businesses grow and succeed.
Young people, especially those aged 15-24, have a big role to play. This is the ‘career exploration’ stage when students and young adults are generally focused on learning new skills and exploring different jobs.
Niagara has a close-knit community advantage– through minimal degrees of separation, people in the ‘career exploration’ stage can get connected with key local employers and jobs.
Opportunity #1: Engage career advisors and educators to promote local job opportunities.
Opportunity #2: Invite students to visit and tour local workplaces.
Opportunity #3: Innovate work-integrated learning activities connected to local employers.
Opportunity #4: Support professional networking.
As people move into their 20s and 30s, they start building careers and balancing work with life. Niagara is attracting more people in this age group, thanks to growing communities and new housing developments. Support like childcare and flexible jobs helps people in their ‘career establishing’ and ‘mid-career’ stages to succeed.
Niagara is already ahead in the housing game. How might we take care of other life and wellbeing needs?
Opportunity #5: Facilitate childcare and family support for working parents.
Opportunity #6: Center work-life balance in employee value proposition within local employers.
For older workers thinking about retirement, there are opportunities to mentor younger employees. Sharing knowledge and experience helps everyone grow while planning for the future. On the employer side, we need to learn more about retirement rates as well as their plans for growth and expansion.
How might we work with the growing cohort of (soon-to-be) retirees?
Opportunity #7: Support succession and workforce planning among local businesses.
Opportunity #8: Engage people in the late career to retirement phase to mentor young professionals.
Immigration contributes to nearly 100% of Canada’s labour force growth. Niagara has been welcoming newcomers and international students who bring new ideas and energy.
Connecting immigrants with meaningful work makes our economy stronger.
Opportunity #9: Support immigrant and newcomer integration in Niagara.
Opportunity #10: Connect employers to immigrant employment and settlement services.
Many Niagara residents would like to work but are experiencing barriers such as: underdeveloped skills, lack of local professional network, precarious or unstable work, low income, and not having basic needs met (housing, food insecurity, transportation).
How might we creatively address barriers to work?
Opportunity #11: Connect jobseekers to accessible skills development programs.
Opportunity #12: Connect jobseekers to gain meaningful work experiences
Opportunity #13: Connect employers to education organization services and employment services to meet labour demand needs.
Opportunity #14: Facilitate Wraparound support to enable creative solutions to barriers.
With growing industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and retail in particular, Niagara’s future has much potential. At the same time, many employers in these sectors are experiencing difficulties attracting and retaining employees.
How might employers in growing sectors innovate to address labour shortages?
Opportunity #15: Support businesses to adopt new technologies and redeploy workers.
Read more in our white paper titled “Opportunities for Workforce Planning and Development in Niagara”, available here.
More than 120 community leaders were consulted throughout the Niagara Workforce Coalition’s inaugural year (2024). The theme in these interactions was clear: if we continue to come together in focused and meaningful ways, we will build a successful and adaptive local workforce that is ready for the future.
Businesses (employers) will have the talent they need to succeed long-term, average household income levels will rise, and our Niagara community will thrive.
Join the Niagara Workforce Coalition and let us know what actions you are taking to help realize these opportunities.
We are collecting data to better understand who is looking for work and what kind of opportunities jobseekers are searching for. This data is completely anonymous and non-personally identifiable.
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