Engaging Youth In The Labour Market

For the past 2 summers, the Workforce Planning Board WWD has tracked youth summer employment and found varying numbers of youth engagement year-to-year and region to region. There is no consistent picture around what youth, especially those 15 to 24, are doing.

In our labour market consultations, data presented showed that young women in the same age group tended to do better in the market than young men. More men were removing themselves from the workforce which may echo a trend in the United States where 7 million young men have totally disengaged from work. At the same time, there is unprecedented information around in-demand roles and jobs with lots of opportunity.

An investigation will help provide a snapshot as to what is happening with youth and what may be missing to better support them to stay in the labour market. By gathering data around youth and their engagement in the labour market, we hope to identify who is available, who is attending education and who is not actively seeking work or education.

Our research will be done alongside youth sessions and community stakeholder sessions.

With the youth sessions, we are looking for the youth voice in determining where the struggles are to labour market participation and what supports are lacking. When we connect with the stakeholders who support youth it can help us determine where the disconnect in youth need, labour market demand and educational or employment services is happening. Doing this then provides our communities with opportunities to pursue and secure programming that aligns with youth need and labour market demands or activate tools that would support youth and employers in connecting thereby closing that engagement gap.

Currently the project is running an initial Youth Survey for anyone aged 15 – 24. This information is being used to get a general picture of the youth experience in the labour market and community. If you or someone you know would like to participate click HERE

To connect on this project please contact Bennett MacDonald at bennett@workforceplanningboard.com

To see previous research based on youth click HERE