The Four County Labour Market Planning Board has released its 2024 Local Labour Market Plan.
Dana Soucie, the planning board's Executive Director, says the plan, which is available online as a report, essentially assesses recent labour market developments.
"So the purpose basically of the local labour market plan is to monitor the changes in the indicators so that we can identify any trends or new developments in our economic region," Soucie stated.
Soucie says the plan details significant labour market issues within the Stratford-Bruce Peninsula Economic Region. It also conveys to the community the nature and complexity of these issues and puts forth specific actions that will help alleviate identified labour market challenges. The online public report contains information on a number of different areas.
"There is prevailing market labour issues, observations on the Employment Ontario Program. This year we have a new section because the National Occupation Classification has changed. They now have a tier level," added Soucie.
Part of the plan includes public engagement this spring, which Soucie says they began doing last year.
"We like to have live sessions where we can present the general overview of what we found in our report from this year. So we like to do that in the spring and engage with our stakeholders to ask questions and give them an opportunity to tell us what's happening from their standpoint," Soucie said.
Overall, Soucie notes the region remains strong economically, but there are issues that will soon need to be addressed.
"We did identify that we have an aging workforce, much like other areas do. But in our area specifically, the older cohort population showed lower participation rates than in Ontario as a whole, so that's something we are looking into," Soucie noted.
The report can be found at www.planningboard.ca/reports.