Pilot Project Helps Workers Improve Skills
Tuesday, July 10, 2012 @ 2:01 PM
Prince George, B.C. – A pilot project aimed at improving skills for workers in the forestry and mining sectors, is having positive results.
The Northern Skills Training Project, funded with $3 million dollars from the provincial Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation, provides Steelworkers in the forestry and mining sectors from Clinton to Fort St. John and west to Smithers, with the funds they need to upgrade their skills.
(at right, Frank Everitt, Gurneal Jaswal, talk with pilot project graduate John Townsend – (photo-opinion250)
“In order to stay competitive, we are investing a fair bit of money into capital” says Gurneal Jaswal, HR Manager at Canfor’s P.G. Sawmill. “With that, there is new technology, and there is a skills requirement that some of our people are lacking”. Through the pilot project, workers can be linked to the educational providers and helped with the costs of those upgrades as long as the upgrades are for a forestry or mining sector job.
Jaswal has had 14 employees go through the pilot project, including John Townsend. John accessed funds to assist him in getting his certification to operate heavy equipment. It means that when a posting is available, he will be able to move out of the planer mill and into the log yard where his hourly wage will increase by $3 to $4 dollars an hour. Another employee took the training necessary to achieve her Canadian Registered Safety Personnel certification.
Individuals are required to undergo an assessment to see if there are any barriers to their success in a program. If there are any barriers, the assessment will help identify the areas in which they will need to make improvements before moving forward with what was their initial goal.
Everitt says the program is a positive for the employee as they know there is room for advancement within the company. It is also a positive for the employer as they already have a team of loyal employees who are living in the north but who are just waiting for the right opportunity to advance, so the recruitment challenges are reduced.
The pilot project has been up and running since March. Some 300 workers have already accessed the program and Everitt says it’s hoped about 800 will have been assisted by the time the program comes to a close at the end of March in 2013.
Comments
I wonder whatever happened to the notion that workers are trained on the job as part of a company’s ongoing “maintenance” program for the most important resource they have – workers.
So, we have to provide money from provincial and federal coffers, not only to upgrade equipment so that they do not keep on polluting the air we breathe, but also to keep wokers trained while paying less corporate taxes.
Like a Sesame Street game – what is wrong with this picture?
Taxpayers paying for the training of private industry employees.
Liberal vote buying in action.
No wonder the anti NDP fear mongers are spreading their fear. Once the Liberals are gone where will all the handouts to them come from?
These guys work all their lives and pay, pay, pay so now when something comes along that helps them in their job its a sin,you guys are unreal but thats your opinion.
Don’t worry about Dragonmaster, lumberman. “Vote Buying” is one of his favorite things to post. After a while, it means nothing.
lumberman55 …..
I worked for different employers throughout my life. In some cases I was a member of a union, in other cases I was part of management. My employment was divided about 50/50 between public and private organizations.
Continuing education was always available to me and, in a few cases, was a requirement. It was always paid for by the organization/company with one exception in the first few years of work when I would have to pay for the course, but was reimbursed when I passed it.
The sin, in my opinion, is that they are working for a company that has to hold out its hand to government to pay to train the workers it depends on. It is their responsibility, not the government’s.
Well put, gus.
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