Literacy and Essential Skills for the Canadian Labour Market

Presentation to the OCASI Professional Development Conference

Toronto, ON, June 20-22, 2011

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Outline1. The Office of Literacy and Essential Skills Mission, Mandate and Focus

2. Literacy and Essential Skills Definition, Benefits, Newcomer Context

3. National Dialogue on Immigrant LES Findings

4. Literacy and Essential Skills Tools Categorization and Examples Tailoring Approaches to Learners Needs Feedback

5. Questions/Comments

Outline

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Office of Literacy and Essential Skills (OLES)

RESEARCH

PROGRAMMING

Researching LES issues

TOOLS Development and dissemination

PARTNERSHIPS

Mandate: OLES is a “centre of expertise” with a labour market focus, building awareness and capacity in “what works” for improving the literacy and essential skills of adult Canadians.

Funds projects through Grants & Contributions

With OGDs, PTs, non-profit organizations

OLES does this through:

OLES is part of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC)

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Understanding Literacy & Essential SkillsReading

Writing

Document Use

Numeracy

Computer Use

Thinking

Oral Communication

Working with Others

Continuous Learning

Literacy and Essential Skills:

• are needed for work, learning and life; • are the foundation for learning all other skills; • help people evolve with their jobs and adapt to workplace change.

These skills are used in nearly every job and throughout daily life in different ways and at varying levels of complexity.

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Benefits for Individuals: Improved self confidence Increased job opportunities Higher earnings

Benefits for Employers: Higher productivity Improved safety Greater employee retention

Why Are Literacy and Essential Skills Important?

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ContextWithin the immigrant population low literacy is disproportionately high

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60% of recent and established immigrants lack the necessary skills to function in a knowledge based economy, compared to

37% of the Canadian-born population.

Despite having high levels of education, recent immigrants

are more likely than Canadian-born workers to have lower

earnings: 67% earn less than $20/hour as compared to 43%

of Canadian-born.

Official language fluency and literacy skills are identified by

both immigrants and employers as being primary barriers to

immigrant labor market integration.

“In a global economy, a highly skilled population is an asset and fundamental to economic growth”

(Statistics Canada, 2008)

Strong literacy and essential skills are a prerequisite to learning new skills and ensuring effective

transitions into the labour market

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OLES worked together with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and held three events in 2010.

Vancouver RoundtableExecutive Directors and heads of key stakeholder organizations (service providers, academic institutions, employers and literacy organizations) from across Canada were engaged in a discussion to identify LES issues and barriers facing immigrants.

Practitioners Fora (Calgary and Toronto)Brought together practitioners from key stakeholder organizations to begin to develop practical solutions to address the issues addressed by the roundtable.

National Dialogue on Immigrants and LES

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Safeway Canada Safeway is a large grocery store chain in W. Canada that is involved

in various innovative initiatives to hire, retain and promote newcomers in various positions within their company.

LES Issues Immigrants are important to its labour force growth. English Skills may not be sufficient for the position. Non-verbal communication skills in a Canadian context may be

lacking. Government, Service Providers, and Educational Institutions can play

a vital role by: – developing tools/ practices to assist with the integration of new

immigrants;– ensuring that programs provide immigrants with the skills that are

in demand in the workplace

Findings: An Employer’s Perspective

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South Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) SAIT is a polytechnic in Calgary that has also developed

innovative LES initiatives for newcomers Steady increase in SAIT L2 learners - up to a 50%

increase in some programs.

LES Issues Oral Communication (including pronunciation), use of

sector-specific vocabulary, writing skills, cultural knowledge related to the workplace (includes non-verbal communication).

This lack of skills creates barriers not only to success in school but ultimately in entering the workforce.

Findings : An Educational Institution’s Perspective

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Literacy and Essential Skills Tools

Free and easy-to-use tools that can address different LES challenges

Can be used by various audiences: Teachers/Trainers/ Career Counsellors, Individuals (Job Seekers & Workers), Employers and HR Professionals, Apprentices & Tradespersons

Can be self-administered or delivered through practitioners such as career counsellors,

teachers etc.

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Tool Categories

NEEDS ASSESSMENTTools to better understand your LES strengths and weaknesses

LEARNING & TRAINING SUPPORTSTools to improve LES levels

APPRENTICESHIPInformation about how LES are used in the trades