Summary
The skills mismatch between Ontario’s existing talent pools and available jobs poses a significant threat to the province’s economic growth and business success. The Ontario government’s current system of skills training and employment services are fragmented and inefficient, but modernization efforts have begun to better align the skills and talent needs of businesses, workers and job seekers.
This report quantifies the costs of Ontario’s skills mismatch, which includes a dive into the province’s labour participation rates. It then outlines the shortcomings of current employment programs before exploring opportunities to improve employment outcomes.
From this analysis, it is recommended that employment programs should do the following:
- Support new Service System Managers with regional labour market information
- Develop partnerships with local industry employers
- Provide flexible and continuous wraparound support following employment placement
- Encourage innovative approaches to serve the most vulnerable
- Target training resources to incumbent and mid-career workers
- Align with infrastructure and workforce investments
- Invest in capacity building and technical assistance
