It seems not long ago that Canadians searching for employment were mostly out of luck. Well-paying positions were scarce, unskilled jobs scant and student summer work, not likely. Freshly minted teachers needed not apply for teaching positions. Skilled trades students vied for the few apprenticeship openings. People holding PhD credentials were driving taxi cabs. Job seekers seldom found work in their areas of expertise.
Now, a decade later, a front-page article in “The London Free Press” heralds, “Worker shortage is holding back Southwestern Ontario’s economy with no simple solutions.” Suddenly, the economic engine is roaring back to life. Or is it? True, the Free Press article is an awakening call to inform readers that many jobs need workers immediately. However, it leads me to ponder what might be some of the obstacles that are causing job seekers to hesitate before rushing to pick up the phone and fill out applications.
Might a significant number of positions be low-paying, part-time jobs which reinforce the term “the working poor” who barely subsist, have little job security, no benefits and certainly no pension plan?
Might the work be quite a distance from where the job-seeker lives without public transit, vehicle or means of relocating family, if necessary?
Might the employment opportunity involve precarious duties, poor working conditions and undue physical/mental stress?
Unless we can engage at the levels of business and government and find creative solutions such as the now cancelled living wage initiative etc., there will “no simple solutions”, as the Free Press article asserts.
-Sister Jean Moylan, csj