General News

County focuses on workforce recruitment and retention

October 21, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

With many employers struggling to attract workers, the County of Simcoe’s Economic Development Office and area partners have received funding to help create stronger rural communities.

The funding will be used to deliver programming to help address local labour shortages in key sectors of industry.

The $58,875 in Rural Economic Development program funding from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will support workforce attraction and retention activities in alignment with Simcoe County’s 2021–2025 Economic Development Strategy. The strategy was developed in consultation with area employers who indicated that the lack of access to labour is a major challenge that is hindering their growth.

Collected date shows that in the month of September, there were 11,441 active job openings in the region. Funding will be used to support four key activities that are designed to help the local labour market.

These include a labour market research study, that will focus on identifying skills and training gaps in key sectors including manufacturing, agriculture, entrepreneurship and technology, professional, scientific and technical services, construction and healthcare.

Learning and networking opportunities are being developed for area companies on workforce topics. An upcoming opportunity includes the Secrets to Being an In-Demand Employer workshop on Oct. 18, that will cover the key ingredients that make a job ad appealing to candidates, how to communicate job ads, and how employers can deliver on promises to attract and retain talent.

The funding will also be used to hold virtual job fairs and create awareness building initiatives.

“As the County’s Economic Development Office continues to work with local business and municipal partners to advance our economy, it’s clear that access to a strong local labour market will be key to our success,” said Simcoe County Warden, George Cornell. “In addition to connecting job seekers to employment opportunities, our Work in Simcoe County job site helps identify our local labour needs. We are grateful to the provincial government for this funding through the Rural Economic Development program, which will support our strong, targeted efforts to attract and retain the right workers to help business grow and thrive.”

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