Businesses Look to Government to Help Upgrade Worker Skills
Monday, August 13, 2012 @ 3:58 AM
Prince George, B.C.- The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has started releasing the results of a series of surveys it conducted with its membership over the course of four months.
The surveys, circulated in March through June of this year, all had themes related to the skills shortage being faced by Canadian businesses.
Although the actual number of participants was not included in the initial results, the information that has been made available indicates 78% of respondents operate a business with 1-50 employees . Of that percentage, 45% were small enterprises with 1-5 employees.
The first survey focused on post secondary education. 79% of respondents said they would consider creating apprenticeships, co-ops or internships. When asked if they would consider student sponsorship in the form of a bursary, only 42% said yes.
Respondents were most likely (67%) to create an internship with government incentives. 55% said they would consider creating a co-op with government incentives, 45% would consider creating an apprenticeship with government incentives, and 31% would consider creating a bursary with government incentives.
The second survey that was circulated dealt with life long learning.
81% said they were investing in training their employees. When asked if they planned to take advantage of government incentives that encourage employees to upgrade their skills, 46% said yes.
The most common way employers encouraged their employees to upgrade their skills was through budgeting money for professional development (74%). A further 51% said they encouraged staff to upgrade their skills by allowing staff to work flexible hours or from home to accommodate studies.
Further results will be released over the balance of the summer. The Canadian Chamber will present its final report at its annual general meeting set for September.
Comments
It sounds so rosy.
Here’s another way of phrasing the same story:
When asked, 79% of respondents did not want to appear too cheap to provide training to their employees. 42% wanted to appear like they cared about helping people go to school. 67% would accept free, or near free labour. 45% might provide a little more on the job training if they were paid for it, and 31% might use our money to help people go to school.
The second survey said 81% provide minimal training for a worker, 46% would provide a little more training if someone else paid for it.
Most employers don’t care about training and will just budget money toward it without telling workers the money is there, when it doesn’t get spent, management will go to conventions with their family and give a presentation when they return. A further 51% said they would like their workers to learn as much as they want on their own time to do better at their job, without compensation or any improvement in working conditions or wage.
Asking a business owner how they treat their workers is like asking a slave owner how they treat their slaves.
More corporate welfare!
Hey Pojeb_sa, you should see how things look from an employers viewpoint. I am confident that the view looks much different.
Well you know if they put the corporate tax back up to 15%….the govt could make sure some training happened. :-)
Well Chester were you out on the streets banging your pots and pans in support of the Quebec students a few months ago?
Looking at it from an employers point of view and all.
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