National Adult Literacy Database

After two consecutive months of declines, the Canadian economy created jobs again, though the unemployment rate still inched up to 7.5 per cent from 7.4 as more people looked for work and outpaced the gains.

The first thing Kyle Vuchko didn't know about Internet business was how hard it was going to be to start one. Now he could write a book about it. "Also, being in an investor-backed company, you have to think about return on investment, the lifetime value of a customer and cost of (customer) acquisition," he said.

New numbers from the Corporate Executive Board’s quarterly study of 20,000 employees over the second half of 2011 took a look at the biggest drivers of employee retention – that is, the reasons people choose to stay loyal to their company – and found that it’s not about the money in the post-recession workforce.

The Canadian Retirement Income Calculator will provide you with retirement income information, including OAS and CPP benefits. You will need to work through a series of modules in order to estimate your retirement incomes and compare them to the 70 per cent income replacement rate often recommended by retirement planners. It also allows you to see the impact of increased savings.

Despite higher education levels, Canadian immigrants experience higher unemployment rates and lower incomes than workers born in the country, according to a new report issued by RBC Economics.

As a greater number of baby boomers delay retirement and remain in the workplace past the traditional retirement age, it will become increasingly common to find older, more experienced workers reporting to significantly younger managers.

Canadian employers expect the hiring climate to remain moderate for the first quarter of 2012, according to the latest results of the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, the most extensive, forward-looking employment survey in the world.

Formalized diversity programs have become a mainstay in many business environments. "The way business looks at diversity is it's not just an employee program. It's about looking at the community as well," says Amy Hanen, associate vice-president of diversity and employee experience analytics at TD Bank Group in Toronto.

"On December 6 we mark the day that 14 women were murdered on their campus 22 years ago simply because they were women," said Roxanne Dubois, national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, Canada's largest student organization.

There is an increased prospect of work stoppages in the public sector in 2012, because labour – which has quietly accepted restraint in recent years – is becoming frustrated with ongoing demands for concessions from government employers, according to The Conference Board of Canada’s Industrial Relations Outlook 2012: Going Sideways, With a Twist.

Employment declined in Quebec and Saskatchewan in November, while it increased in Nova Scotia. There was little change in the other provinces.

Unemployment remains stubbornly high, and yet employers complain that they can’t find the people with the skills they need. It’s time for a transformation of the way leaders develop and employ talent, advised Ravin Jesuthasan, managing director of Towers Watson’s talent management practice.

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.