Dollar Injection to Help Address Labour Shortage

By 250 News

Dandy Lines Co-Owner  Erin MacDermott  discusses  product selection with Small Business and Revenue Minister Rick Thorpe

Prince George, B.C. - As Prince George struggles with a shortage of   labour, particularly in the retail and service industry, Small Business and Revenue Minister Rick Thorpe has announced funding for a training program for front-line retail workers.

The Performance, Empowerment, Attitude and Knowledge training program (PEAK) offers courses in the areas of customer service, sales, and management and staff development.  This year, some of the   funding will be used to translate a training module into another language.

Thorpe says the retail business in B.C. is “managing success”. 

Deputy Premier and Minister of Education, Shirley Bond says the government is developing a strategy that not only deals with the labour shortage in the trades;  “We want to give employers, the opportunity to have training mechanisms to encourage, recruit and retain those great employees.  Customer service is so important.  We know that as we reach out to 2010, we are going to have even more demand on having top notch and well trained front line workers. “

(at right,  Minister Bond, Dandy Lines Co-Owner Erin MacDermott, Minister Thorpe and  Retail B.C. Director Misti Mussatto celebrate  funding /  photo opinion250 staff)

Minister Thorpe says workers are being brought in from other countries to help fill the employment gaps “We now have this great opportunity to bring the very best and brightest from around the world to British Columbia.”   

Bond says the reality is, there are lots of jobs,   and not enough   people to fill the positions.  “If you do the math, one of the things that is  a challenge for us is that British Columbia is in the position   of creating, in the next decade, a million new jobs.  If you graduate every single student that is in school today, that’s about 650 thousand skilled workers, potentially.  That is a huge deficit .”  Bond says Provincial Government is looking at a number of strategies, including training for Retail B.C., extra dollars for colleges and universities.

So why is there a shortage?  Where have the workers gone? 

Retail B.C. Director Misti  Mussatto  says they are still here “The thing with today’s youth is that they are never satisfied, they want to grow.  So we need to  provide opportunities for them to  learn  more about how they can grow,  learn more about front line service, learn all the skills they can learn.  I believe they’re still there, we’ve (retail)  just grown.” 

But Minister Bond says the focus shouldn’t just be on youth and  that is one of the reason’s why  the Province has  done away with mandatory retirement “When you think about  where expertise lies, there is an  enormous  potential within the other age spectrum as well and in order to solve this challenge we are going to have to look at young people, middle aged people and a little bit older people, to make sure British Columbia has the workforce it needs.”

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