New Collaboration Studies The Local Labour Market

Monday, 16 May 2016 06:14

The Local Employment Planning Council has officially launched and will be carefully examining our local labour market.

Oxford County is one of several community partners in the new Local Employment Planning Council.

Oxford joins Elgin, Middlesex, and the City of London on the council to focus on employment, training, and the human resources that impact local employment. The goal is to improve both employers' access to talent and opportunities for job seekers to successfully enter into the local labour market right now and in the future. Program Director at Community Employment Resources Julie Matheson tells Heart FM they will work with the Oxford Workforce Development Partnership.

"The Local Employment Council will not work in isolation, they are going to be working with the existing workforce development that is happening in each of the areas and through this pilot we wish to engage and connect with these planning processes because when individual communities succeed the whole region becomes stronger."

Matheson also talks about some of the things they are hoping to accomplish:

"We want a labour market that works for employers by helping them find the talent they need now and ensuring that employers will be able to find the talent they need in the future and we want a labour market that works for people by creating the local pathways for them to be able to build the skills that will see them employed now and in the future. One of the biggest challenges is we don't always know what the future needs are for all of our employers, that is important so people can train to match the needs of our employers, updated local labour market information is invaluable in planning and we need to communicate and educate potential students as well."

The hope is they will be able to identify where there are gaps between what employers are looking for and what skills job seekers possess, and find ways to make the two meet. To do this they will collect information from employers through surveys sent out in January and try to discern what the labour market really looks like here on a local level.

Support for the Local Employment Planning Council is provided through a partnership of the Elgin Middlesex Oxford Workforce Planning and Development Board and Literacy Link South Central.