Access to Talent Required to Keep Ontario Competitive

(Toronto, May 24, 2018) –  Today, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) called on all political parties to take bold action in improving the alignment of skills, education, and career opportunities across the province with election day just weeks away. In its Vote Prosperity platform, the OCC emphasizes that a robust labour market with good jobs is essential to the future growth of the economy and Ontario’s continued global competitiveness.

The OCC would like Ontario’s next government to modernize the apprenticeship system and work with both industry and post-secondary institutions to ensure that program offerings remain responsive to the changing labour market and needs of the business community.

“As Ontario employers struggle to recruit properly qualified talent, the skills mismatch is becoming a serious challenge for businesses to remain competitive,” said Rocco Rossi, President and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. “That is why the OCC is calling on all political parties to create a skilled and qualified workforce—the most important issue facing our membership.”

77 percent of businesses in Ontario note that access to talent has the largest impact on their competitiveness.

Fostering job creation is the second pillar for a strong Ontario in the Vote Prosperity platform, which calls on the next government to implement a plan that will:

• Modernize the apprenticeship system.
• Redesign Employment Ontario services for both job-seekers and employers and evaluate the potential of an outcomes-based funding model.
• Work with industry and post-secondary institutions to ensure that program offerings remain responsive to the changing labour market dynamics and the regional and sectoral needs of Ontario’s business community.
• Allocate resources to focus support on high growth firms and those with high growth potential, by delaying taxation on corporate income growth to overcome Ontario’s scale-up challenge.

“Ontario has tremendous advantages, but we must seek to further leverage those advantages to ensure economic prosperity,” added Rossi. “This election day, for Ontario to win, we must consider how we are leveraging our greatest asset—human capital.”

In October the OCC, along with its 135 chambers of commerce and boards of trade across the province, released Vote Prosperity, a platform outlining the business community’s priorities for the upcoming 2018 provincial election.

For more information about the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s Vote Prosperity platform, please visit our website.

-30-

For more information please contact:
Ceara Copps – Edwards
Communications Advisor
Ontario Chamber of Commerce
cearacoppsedwards@oc.ca
647-243-3562