National Adult Literacy Database

This program was developed in 2009 because the Corrections Service faced significant challenges recruiting northerners with the basic qualifications to work in the corrections field. Successful graduates will continue to the final part of their program: paid casual staff positions that include a workplace orientation where they obtain direct on-the-job experience.

The coauthor of a new book believes we are about to see a radical change in the workplace that will give workers more choice over how, when and where they work. The change, fueled by the explosion in communications technology, will be the result of business needs -- a desire to cut real estate costs, a drive to improve customer service or enter a new market faster, or an effort to reduce high rates of employee turnover.

Joint initiatives among communities and businesses are helping to close the gap between the tremendous need for skilled workers in Canada’s North and the shortage of people with sufficient education and employment skills, according to a new report from The Conference Board of Canada’s Centre for the North.

TESL Canada and BC TEAL welcome proposals for presentations at the TESL Canada 2012 conference next October. As a major national forum with international reach, TESL Canada conferences are held on an 18-month cycle and offer an important opportunity for professionals to share their work with peers.

Recent research conducted by Ipsos Reid indicates the most important reason why Canadians would not relocate to another city is because they do not want to leave friends and family behind.

At the first of the Work and Learning Network’s 2011/2012 symposiums, John Servage drew on his 35 years of experience to present a rich case study which described how this troubled group of workers used employee-driven learning to turn their department around. John described how he and his staff broke the department into inquiry teams, and empowered them to change the way they worked together.

The disappointing Statistics Canada numbers are in stark contrast to economists’ expectations that 12,000 new jobs would be created in October, after 61,000 new positions in September. The loss of 32,000 jobs in the private sector in October was the third consecutive monthly decline in that category.

Wage earners will feel the pinch, as the bulk of jobs created will likely be low-paying, but more broadly the economy will suffer as the trend puts a damper on consumer spending, says Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist at CIBC World Markets.