National Adult Literacy Database

The ESL Literacy Network invites you to participate in its upcoming online workshop series: Using the ESL Literacy Readers. This two-week online workshop is an opportunity to learn, share ideas and connect with other ESL literacy practitioners.

Help inform and shape thinking around policy, practice and research as The Centre for Literacy prepares for PIAAC. The Summer Institute will examine and compare the learning from IALS and ALL across Canada and other countries, and explore how we can make most effective use of soon-to-be released PIAAC results. We will look at the new segments – problem-solving in technology-rich environments and the reading components – and at the implications of changes in levels and cut-off.

Adult Learners’ Week can be a bit like New Year’s — an opportunity both to reflect and make plans for the future. And like New Year’s resolutions, the plans we make for learning are much more likely to come to fruition if they are practical and integrated into our regular schedule, and if we are truly motivated to learn.

Millennials, loosely defined as those born after 1980, aren't afraid of quitting their jobs. According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, Generation Y is expected to stay in jobs for just over two years, about half the amount of time spent by the current average worker.

"International Women's Day (March 8) is an opportunity to celebrate women's achievement and reflect on the barriers that women still face today," said Jessica McCormick, National Deputy Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students. "High tuition fees and record levels of student debt, when coupled with the persisting wage gap, impede many qualified women from attending college or university in Canada."

Canada turned out 51,000 new jobs in February and more people are actively seeking work, but governments across the country are ignoring the underlying spread of precarious work at their own peril, said CAW President Ken Lewenza.

Employment rose by 51,000 in February, following a slight decline the previous month. This increase was spread between full- and part-time work. The unemployment rate remained at 7.0% as more people participated in the labour force.

Work culture has been at the forefront of everybody’s mind lately. With Yahoo’s recent decision to ban telecommuting to improve employee engagement making headlines, it’s hard not to stop and evaluate the significance of work culture on our lives today.

While the Canadian labour market has shown great resilience since the last recession and is nearly back to normal, important weaknesses remain for youth and the long-term unemployed, according to a report released today by the C.D. Howe Institute.

"The improvement in our numbers of female employees across the board in systems, software, hardware and quality engineering, and in project management, finance and HR has not been achieved through special measures, or hiring more women than men, but instead has occurred organically, assisted by professional development programs," said Michelle Forbrigger, Vice-president Human Resources, Thales Canada.

Marty Warren, United Steelworkers Director for Atlantic Canada and Ontario, said workers and communities deserve greater commitment and co-operation from the company and federal and provincial governments to revive the Nova Forge plant and to provide greater support for industry as a whole.

Each month NALD releases Library user statistics in a feature known as the Top 20 downloads/20 Plus téléchargés. The report examines the number of NALD Library documents, in both English and French, which are viewed and downloaded by visitors to the websites NALD and BDAA.

Jan Chappel, Senior Technical Specialist at the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, will speak at two upcoming conferences, on the topics of workplace bullying, vulnerable workers and evaluating literature and research data.

In developing nations, with prohibited freedom, lower literacy rates, and lack of technological knowledge, many women are missing out on the Internet. While both genders tend to have more limited Internet connectivity than those in the west, there are still some very surprising discrepancies in how much more often men are able to access the web.

Depending on the work environment, wage dispersion can have a positive or negative effect on performance. It all depends on the context, explains Alison Konrad, professor of organizational behaviour at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ontario.