Our bi-yearly EmployerOne Survey captures industry and business perspectives on key labour force challenges around recruitment and retention, as well as emerging trends. This data helps inform community development of programming, giving planning boards and their partners a clear read on what employers need and where the gaps are.
However, there is no similar survey of the workforce itself, specifically when looking at employees and jobseekers. Missing from this picture is how the workforce views recruitment and retention, what attracts them to opportunities, and how emerging trends are affecting them. Without this perspective, planning and programming decisions are being made with only half the picture: we understand what employers want, but not what the people they’re trying to attract and retain actually experience or need.
The Workforce Survey will provide complementary information to help understand the needs and experiences of the workforce. Specifically, employees, jobseekers, and individuals preparing to enter the workforce. By pairing this with the existing EmployerOne data, partners gain a fuller, two-sided view of the labour market: supply and demand, employer and employee, side by side.
This information will provide valuable insight for partners and interest holders to adapt practices, inform service coordination and planning, and better align with demand-side expectations and needs. Ultimately, it supports more responsive, evidence-based decision-making across the network — helping ensure that programs and services reflect the realities of the people they’re meant to serve, not just the priorities of the employers seeking to hire them.
This project is being undertaken in conjunction with the Elgin Middlesex Oxford Workforce Planning Board, allowing both regions to contribute to a larger, shared picture of the workforce perspective across a broader area.
This Employment Ontario project is funded in part by the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario.