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Omar Yaqub

Does Local Firm Ownership Matter? - 0 views

edq.sagepub.com/...0891242411407312

local trends competitiveness

shared by Omar Yaqub on 04 May 11 - No Cached
  • Omar Yaqub on 04 May 11
     
    A data set for U.S. counties that includes residence status of firm owners is used to assess whether per capita density of locally owned businesses affects local economic growth, compared with nonlocal ownership. The database also permits stratification of firms across different employment size categories. Economic growth models that control for other relevant factors reveal a positive relationship between density of locally owned firms and per capita income growth but only for small (10-99 employees) firms, whereas the density of large (more than 500 workers) firms not owned locally has a negative effect. These results provide strong evidence that local ownership matters for economic growth but only in the small size category. Results are robust across rural and urban counties.
Omar Yaqub

Home | Wiganplus - 0 views

www.wiganplus.com

shared by Omar Yaqub on 28 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • WiganPlus is an exciting new scheme that rewards people who live and work within Wigan for continuing to shop in our local town centre. With exclusive promotions from Arriva on local bus travel to Wigan town centre and exciting offers and incentives from the towns favourite retailers, WiganPlus makes local loyalty more rewarding. 
  • Omar Yaqub on 28 Feb 11
     
    Incentive to promote local business, shopping, and cooperation WiganPlus is an exciting new scheme that rewards people who live and work within Wigan for continuing to shop in our local town centre. With exclusive promotions from Arriva on local bus travel to Wigan town centre and exciting offers and incentives from the towns favourite retailers, WiganPlus makes local loyalty more rewarding.
Omar Yaqub

The Future of Manufacturing is Local - NYTimes.com - 0 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...ture-of-manufacturing-is-local

work competitiveness manufacturing local

shared by Omar Yaqub on 28 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Both SFMade and its New York cousin, Made in N.Y.C., are increasingly able to share success stories of how manufacturing has developed new models for doing business in the 21st century. The monolithic single-industry model has evolved as manufacturers see the benefits of being smaller and paying attention to how patterns of consumption, ownership and use are shifting.
  • “For decades we have developed a culture of disposability — from consumer goods to medical instruments and machine tools. To fuel economic growth, marketers replaced longevity with planned obsolescence — and our mastery of technology has given birth to ever-accelerating unplanned obsolescence. I think there is increasing awareness that this is no longer sustainable on the scale we have developed.”
  • “It’s not some cute cottage industry,” she says, referring to the prevailing tendency to view “local” as something generally limited to cupcakes, jam or “My Mom Went to _____ And All I Got Was This T-Shirt.” The “number one thing we do,” Sofis continues, “is facilitate new connections.”
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  • The decision to be a non-profit was borne out of the belief that trade organizations (like the Chamber of Commerce) often serve more of a business development function rather than address the needs of the local manufacturing community.
  • In contrast to government-initiated programs, SFMade emerged from the community, the culmination of a grassroots movement. The group allows that community to reconnect, share resources, receive education and assistance on everything from zoning to sourcing to taxes. In the last year, 128 companies have joined in the belief that they’re better togethe
  • Sustainability has become a large part of its mission: member companies can post the environmental impacts of their manufacturing processes on the Made in N.Y.C. Web site, with those excelling in greener process and product able to earn a “green apple.” Tying economic growth inextricably to environmental stewardship has so far been a strong strategy.
  • “Let’s help the public understand what we have,” she continues. “The job potential is huge.”
Omar Yaqub

Reports || EEDC 2008 annual report - 0 views

www.edmonton.com/...Annual_Report_2008.pdf

shared by Omar Yaqub on 01 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Omar Yaqub on 01 Dec 10
     
    Workforce DevelopmentThe shortage of skilled workers was unquestionably the mostimportant challenge faced by Edmonton industry in 2008. Inits third year, EEDC's Edmonton Workforce Connection (EWC)program continued in conjunction with industry and governmentto address regional labour challenges. EWC worked with industrystakeholders, immigrant-serving agencies, the City of Edmonton,educational institutions and Alberta Employment and Immigrationto launch the Edmonton Region Immigrant Employment Council.This organization was created to help address the underemploymentof skilled immigrants in the region.EWC also provided new opportunities for businesses and workersto connect. These included developing the Employers of Choicewebsite to highlight local employers, creating a link to WOWJobs that enabled companies to advertise job opportunities, andconnecting Edmonton employers to university career centresacross Canada.EWC has a new name - EEDC's Workforce Development Program- and new challenges. The focus of the program will be optimizingthe labour force to address a growing skills shortage that isdriven by an aging population, competition, innovation and newtechnologies. Alberta employers are reassessing their needs andthe future of their businesses in light of the economic slowdown.EEDC will continue to need blue and white-collar workers who areemployed to their maximum capacity to rebuild the economy. Productivity & InnovationIn 2008, EEDC made a strategic decision to be a leader inpromoting greater productivity through innovation in the Edmontonregion.In collaboration with the province and cities across Alberta, EEDChosted Innovative Manufacturing Works tours in Edmontonin October 2008. Thirty industry representatives visited threeEdmonton-area manufacturers, which are focused on continuallyrefining their processes to achieve peak efficiency. Events such asthese improve public awareness of the capability of local industryand encourage other firms to adopt be
Omar Yaqub

University and not-for-profit team up to explore local business - West Edmonton Local - 0 views

westedmontonlocal.ca/...m-up-to-explore-local-business

edmonton

shared by Omar Yaqub on 27 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • $100 spent locally on food has three to five times the economic impact than supporting an alternative where the money more than likely leaves the province, or the country.
Omar Yaqub

Foreign Qualifications for Jobs in Canada - 0 views

www.welcomebc.ca/...index.page

work bc immigrants

shared by Omar Yaqub on 24 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • The assessment process In regulated occupations: The first step is to contact the relevant regulatory authority to determine what they need from you, and to discuss expected costs, timelines, and other requirements.
  • Some things that may be required during the assessment processes are: Complete an application form and provide necessary documentation.Required documents vary depending on the occupation; however, they often include educational transcripts, reliable references, employment history, resumé, and completed application form. Have your educational credentials assessed.Some regulatory authorities will perform the assessment of educational credentials internally. Others use external organizations to do this.The International Credential Evaluation Service (ICES) will assess your credentials (education) on a fee-for-service basis; however, an ICES assessment is not always required. Before paying to have your credentials assessed by ICES, contact the relevant regulatory authority to find out what they require. Regulatory authorities may also assess other aspects of your qualifications, using some of the following approaches: Verifying previous work experience by contacting work references Practical assessment of job-related competencies Oral interview with applicant to verify information and to determine job-related capabilities As part of the assessment process, you will likely be required to: Take exams Pay fees Provide additional documentation or clarify information upon request
  • The total cost for the assessment process varies, depending on the occupation and the regulatory authority’s requirements. You can expect to pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. The length of time that the certification process takes also varies depending on the occupation—anywhere from a few weeks to several months. It is recommended that you contact the appropriate regulatory authority (PDF - 94KB) prior to arriving in BC, or as soon as possible after you have arrived, in order to determine the process and requirements for the occupation in which you would like to work. To assist you in determining which regulatory authority is responsible for your occupation open the following: www.tilma.ca/pdf/BCRegulatoryAuthorities.pdf
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  • Upgrading options If a regulatory authority or employers require that you upgrade your qualifications in order to become certified and/or employer, there are a few options to consider if you require assistance: Regulatory authorities often have links with specialized educational or “bridging” programs within educational institutions that will assist individuals with international qualifications. Services to support language upgrading can be found on this website. You can contact post-secondary institutions directly. Check out the Skills Connect for Immigrants Program – an individualized employment bridging program providing assistance with the assessment and career planning process, skill upgrading, workplace language supports and workplace practice opportunities. Contact the InfoCentre for Skilled Immigrants. Contact your local settlement agency.
  • In non-regulated occupations: Since employers decide whether your qualifications will match the requirements for a specific job, you should check with the employer that you are looking to work for to determine whether an independent assessment of your educational credentials or past work experience will be required. Employers will be able to give you information regarding the requirements for demonstrating that your qualifications will be accepted for a specific position in BC
  • Prepare You can do as much research as soon as possible to learn: if your desired occupation is regulated, and, if so, you can learn about the occupational standards that you must meet in order to become certified about any requirements necessary to become certified or employed about the various employers that can be found within your desired occupation or sector
  • Pan-Canadian Framework for the Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Qualifications In cooperation with other provinces, territories, and the federal government, British Columbia has recently announced a pan-Canadian framework to improve the recognition of qualifications for immigrants coming to the province to seek work in regulated occupations. The framework is designed to make Foreign Qualifications Recognition process faster, fairer, more transparent, and consistent across the country; getting you working much sooner. This framework will result in a number of changes, including: better information to help you prepare for qualifications assessments more ways to begin the qualifications assessment process before you get here faster and cost effective processes for assessment opportunities for upgrading your qualifications more support to individuals like yourself and employers
Omar Yaqub

Industrial policy: Moving the movie business | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...industrial_policy

shared by Omar Yaqub on 02 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Yet it's worth thinking about why it's absurd to argue that every state should try to subsidise up a local film industry but not crazy to support local universities. Certainly, there are huge efficiencies being sacrificed by duplicating administrative capacity all around the country. And academics benefit from close proximity to those working on similar problems; the efficacy of research is reduced when it's spread more thinly around the country. If America had fewer, bigger states, it would probably have fewer, bigger universities, and that might well be a very good thing.
  • The joke, I'm sure I don't need to explain, is that not every state can succeed by poaching productions from other states, since what's made in one state can't be made in another. But that's not quite right. A subsidy allows a business to cut prices and artificially raise demand. Given generous enough subsidies, many more movies would be made, and each state could, potentially, have a thriving film industry. This is how higher education works, more or less. New Mexico has state universities just like California and Iowa and Alaska. These schools are understandably viewed as foundations of the local economies in which they're located, as well as important cultural institutions. And we obviously view the subsidisation of the production of college graduates as a worthwhile contribution to long-run growth, again, understandably.
  • [Former New Mexico Governor Bill] Richardson says that the film and TV subsidy has brought "nearly $4 billion into our economy over eight years" and has created 10,000 jobs. By "our," he means New Mexico. He says every state should emulate this success.
Omar Yaqub

How cities take the renewable energy lead when provinces don't | Pembina Institute - 0 views

www.pembina.org/504

cities competitiveness green

shared by Omar Yaqub on 25 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • n the absence of a comprehensive renewable energy plan for Canada, several have begun forging ahead with their own long-term visions to produce renewable energy locally.
  • We see this across Alberta. More than 20 communities, from Athabasca to Pincher Creek, have installed solar electricity systems on highly visible public buildings.
  • at a meeting of the City of Edmonton's Task Force on Renewable Energy that we heard the story of one of the boldest municipal steps to encourage local renewable energy in North America. Gainesville, Florida - home of the Gators and Gatorade - made headlines when they launched the very first municipal feed-in tariff program to facilitate solar energy on homes and businesses.
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  • describing her community, Hanrahan painted a picture familiar to Albertans. Gainesville is an inland medium-sized centricity with a large university, surrounded by agriculture and forests. Coal fuels most of their electricity production. While Gainesville has a (much!) warmer climate than Alberta's cities, it only has about a seven per cent better solar resource for generating electricity than Edmonton does.
  • Gainesville's feed-in tariff guarantees a payment for 20 years for electricity fed back to the grid, set at a rate that will allow owners to recover their costs and obtain a four to five per cent rate of return. To control costs, the program is capped so that contracts are only available for four megawatts of new installed capacity each year. The first 4 MW has cost the average resident about 70¢ per month. As installation costs quickly decrease with a new, robust local solar market, future phases will cost even less.
  • the political obstacles are less daunting at the municipal level.
  • Omar Yaqub on 25 Feb 11
     
    How cities take the renewable energy lead when provinces don't
Omar Yaqub

How to compete and grow: A sector guide to policy | www.mckinsey.com | Readability - 0 views

www.readability.com/...c5adhseh

work us trends

shared by Omar Yaqub on 17 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • To streamline the complex analysis governments need to undertake, MGI offers a new framework of six sector groups that share characteristics and respond to similar approaches to enhancing competitiveness. They are (1) infrastructure services; (2) local services; (3) business services; (4) research and development (R&D)-intensive manufacturing; (5) manufacturing; and (6) resource-intensive industries. In each of these groups, MGI documents how competitiveness levers vary and how policy has influenced competitiveness in each. These six categories provide a useful framework for understanding what determines competitiveness in different kinds of industries and what tangible actions governments and businesses can take to improve competitiveness
  • Omar Yaqub on 17 Mar 11
     
    To streamline the complex analysis governments need to undertake, MGI offers a new framework of six sector groups that share characteristics and respond to similar approaches to enhancing competitiveness. They are (1) infrastructure services; (2) local services; (3) business services; (4) research and development (R&D)-intensive manufacturing; (5) manufacturing; and (6) resource-intensive industries. In each of these groups, MGI documents how competitiveness levers vary and how policy has influenced competitiveness in each. These six categories provide a useful framework for understanding what determines competitiveness in different kinds of industries and what tangible actions governments and businesses can take to improve competitiveness.
Omar Yaqub

Reports || EEDC 2009 annual report - 0 views

www.edmonton.com/...EEDC_AR_Web2.pdf

eedc work trends

shared by Omar Yaqub on 01 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Omar Yaqub on 01 Dec 10
     
    WorkforceEEDC's workforce development program continued forits fourth year in 2009. With industry, education andgovernment partners, EEDC addressed regional labourchallenges and helped to plan for anticipated increases in thedemand for skilled labour in 2010. The program supportedthe Edmonton Region Immigrant Employment Council, whichhelps immigrants gain experience working in Canada andprovides tools to help them find meaningful employment.Workforce development created opportunities for businessesand workers to connect through its enhanced web presenceat edmonton.com. The site informs employees aboutliving, working and educational opportunities in Edmonton.Employers were connected with programs designed toassist under-employed and unemployed segments of thelocal workforce. To address higher rates of unemployment,information was provided on how to access employmentopportunities in the Edmonton region. Productivity & Innovation Productivity improvements within the Edmonton regioncontinue to be a major focus for EEDC. Manufacturersand producers are experiencing increased internationalcompetition. With partners including the Government ofAlberta, we offer industry the opportunity to reviewbusiness processes, product improvements, evaluatenew markets, reinvent business models and explore newtechnological innovations.EEDC was actively involved in producing Reaching NewMarkets, a seminar that provided insights into new waysof growing business during challenging times. As part of aleadership development series, EEDC sponsored At the Speedof Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey at the Shaw ConferenceCentre in June. EEDC co-ordinated two best practicesmissions to Ontario in which corporate participants wereexposed to world-class manufacturers that have made greatstrides in productivity improvements.EEDC supported the heavy oil industry's National Buyer/SellerForum, which attracted 650 delegates from around the world,providing local companies the opportunity to sell into thein
Omar Yaqub

Local hiring outlook down: survey - 0 views

www.edmontonjournal.com/...story.html

work edmonton statistics

shared by Omar Yaqub on 09 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • A hopeful hiring climate is expected for Edmonton in the spring, but employers aren't as optimistic as they were to start the year.
  • The latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, released Tuesday, found that 21 per cent of Edmontonarea employers plan to hire for the upcoming quarter (April to June), while nine per cent expect cutbacks, for a net outlook of 12 per cent
  • Sixty-nine per cent of employers will maintain their current staffing levels and one per cent were unsure of their hiring intentions.
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  • They're not always going to go up 100 per cent of the time. It's more key to look at that year-over-year reflection
  • Across Canada, employers project a hiring-intentions outlook of 13 per cent.
  • Western Canada is leading much of the optimism for job creation. Mining, services and transportation/public utilities were industries with the highest hiring intentions.
Omar Yaqub

Where the US will find growth and jobs - McKinsey Quarterly - Public Sector - Economic ... - 0 views

www.mckinseyquarterly.com/...will_find_growth_and_jobs_2544

us work trends

shared by Omar Yaqub on 17 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Policy makers pinning their hopes on cutting-edge “clean” technologies to create jobs on a large scale are likely to be disappointed. Innovation in R&D-intensive sectors can play a vital role, enabling productivity gains and consumer benefits in the economy more broadly—think IT. But such sectors alone are simply too small to make an economy-wide difference in growth and employment.
  • In the past, it has too often been hit or miss because it was based solely on a macroeconomic view—whether one country is more competitive than another.
  • The quest for new jobs, for example, is much more likely to bear fruit in large local-business and household-services sectors, where regulation can have the most direct impact.
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  • From 1995 to 2005, service sectors generated all net job growth in high-income economies and 85 percent of net new jobs in emerging economies. Low-tech green jobs in local services, such as improving building insulation and replacing obsolete heating and cooling equipment, could generate more jobs than would be created through the development of renewable technologies.
Omar Yaqub

globeadvisor.com: Gearing up for a new labour crunch - 0 views

www.globeadvisor.com/...RBOILSANDSJOBSATL

Work alberta immigrants

shared by Omar Yaqub on 24 May 11 - No Cached
  • Canada's oil patch is scrambling to bring back foreign workers, desperate to avoid a repeat of the labour crunch that clobbered the industry three years ago.
  • In 2008, oil sands capital spending hit about $18-billion (Canadian). Projections by Calgary-based investment dealer Peters & Co. suggest industry will surpass that level by next year. By 2014, the firm forecasts capital spending will exceed 2008 levels by nearly 25 per cent.
  • The Alberta government says the province will be short 77,000 workers in the next 10 years. The Petroleum Human Resources Council has predicted up to 130,000 new workers will be needed in the coming decade, both to staff new jobs and replace retirements.
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  • For Flint Energy Services Ltd., the pinch is already on. The company has brought in 20 Filipino insulators this year. It has authority from the federal government to bring in 60 more foreign workers, and expects to apply for more later this year.
  • "Everybody's got a bit of a guess at all of this, but the numbers are like nothing we've seen before," said international recruitment lead Brent Guthrie. "Whereas Flint was bringing in hundreds in 2008, an expectation of going to 1,000 is not unheard of going forward ... The local market gets burned out quite quickly on these major projects, and then everybody's scrambling."
  • PCL Industrial Contractors Inc., the arm of the construction giant heavily involved in building the oil sands, hit 350 temporary foreign workers in the last boom. Today it has little more than a dozen, but is laying plans for a spree starting early next year that far outstrips the past.
  • "We're looking at the 1,000-person mark for a prolonged period, probably peaking in late 2012," said Gary Truhn, director of construction and labour relations. "We think there's some major projects that are going to be there for quite a while."
  • The hiring will begin months before, however. Depending on the country of origin, it can take between four and six months to gain government approval to bring in a foreign worker. That's why companies are working now to start the process.
  • In the first four months of this year, Alberta companies applied to bring in 9,910 temporary foreign workers, according to Human Resources and Skills Development Canada.
  • Peter Veress, president of immigration consultants Vermax Group Inc., recently set up a new training centre in Saltillo, Mexico. In early May, it welcomed its first group of workers to a course designed to impart safety, language and other skills to pipe-fitters and welders before they head north. "Companies are a little more proactive this time around. They don't want to get caught like they did last time around."
  • It's not cheap, though. Between paperwork, training and travel, it can easily cost $10,000 to bring in a temporary foreign worker.
  • in Alberta, hiring can be uncertain. Workers in certified trades have a year to pass Red Seal exams. If they can't, they must go back home.
  • On the East Coast, where many trade and construction workers remain unemployed, the mention of overseas hiring rankles.
  • "We have probably 150 guys on the out-of-work list," said Ian MacIsaac, business representative for local 1178 of the Nova Scotia & PEI Regional Council of Carpenters, Millwrights & Allied Workers, which has 240 members.
  • Alberta's government is starting to feel the same way. It recently released a strategy to keep older workers in the labour pool. Thomas Lukaszuk, Minister of Employment and Immigration, has called on Ottawa to shrink employment insurance eligibility in other provinces, in hopes of compelling workers from elsewhere in Canada to come to Alberta. He also wants authority for the province to nominate more foreign workers to become permanent residents. "We will be severely short on workers, not [just] the next few years but the next few decades," he said.
Omar Yaqub

Job bank to fast-track skilled immigrants - 0 views

www.edmontonjournal.com/...story.html

work immigrants alberta tfw government canada

shared by Omar Yaqub on 09 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • federal government plans to create a global job bank to bring in more skilled foreign workers, while using a new technique to end the "bizarre" situation where low-skilled temporary foreign workers are hired in Canadian communities with double-digit unemployment, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Friday.
  • at least two years to implement, according to Kenney.
  • Every application from a prospective skilled foreign worker will go into an online pool, and provincial governments and employers will have the ability to cherry-pick potential employees who will have their applications fast-tracked.
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  • Thursday's budget includes the promise of stricter provisions requiring employers to show they've made clear to local people making Employment Insurance benefit claims that there are jobs available.
Omar Yaqub

Global Talent for SMEs « ALLIES Canada - 0 views

alliescanada.ca/...sme-projects

Work immigrants sme

shared by Omar Yaqub on 17 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have enormous potential as employers of skilled immigrants. At the same time, they can benefit from the skills, experience and innovation that skilled immigrants can bring to their organizations. ALLIES has undertaken research to better understand the programs and policies that can engage and influence the human resource practices of SMEs. Drawing on an examination of programs, policies and organizational efforts aimed at SMEs in ten provinces and 20 cities, and more than 50 interviews with key informants, this research proposes eight practical ideas for cities, governments and service providers.
  • A tailored strategy for SMEs is needed because SMEs are concentrated in different sectors than their larger counterparts. Recent immigrants are a large part of the workforce, and, overall, they have the skills, education and experience to contribute to Canada’s economy. Current programming does not focus on assisting SMEs to hire new workers. SMEs are motivated by immediate need and financial incentive. They want to mitigate the risk of hiring decisions, particularly when hiring outside of their personal networks. Because SMEs tend not to have formalized structures in place, they can easily and quickly adopt new practices. To be effective, programs for SMEs must be simple, straightforward, and available on demand. Hiring programs for SMEs should be targeted by sector or industry, or for growing businesses. SME programs need strong communications and marketing support to be successful.
  • Hiring Programs 1. Activity-focused internship – Positions for mid-level professional skilled immigrants will focus on a core business area (e.g. E-commerce, export activities, financial management). 2. One-stop shop for recruiting and HR support services – Gives SMEs a single point of access to a wealth of government and community programs, and provides screened, qualified candidates to employers ready to hire. 3. Online database of screened candidates – Provides on-demand access to qualified candidates in a particular industry or sector. 4. Wage and orientation subsidy – Encourages SMEs to hire a skilled immigrant, and enhances their capacity to provide orientation and training to new workers.
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  • Awareness and Education 5. HR Resources Online – This website will have customizeable tools on a wide range of human resource topics, and information about good practices for hiring immigrants. 6. Financial institutions provide information/education to business clients – Financial institutions will provide information to their small business clients at the time when they are most likely to be growing their business.
  • Communciations & Marketing 7. Corporate call – In these one-on-one visits, employer consultants can assess needs, recommend programs and services, and establish relationships with SMEs. 8. Business and industry associations – These organizations have established relationships and channels of communications with their SME members.
  • SMEs in our Cities Review a statistical snapshot of a local labour market and the skilled immigrant demographic in these fact sheets (PDF): Fast Facts | Calgary
  • Key Small Business Statistics – Find statistics about small businesses in Canada from Industry Canada.
  • Globe and Mail Coverage – Project connects immigrants with small businesses & An eight-point plan to get jobs for immigrants
Omar Yaqub

Job retraining: No 'magic bullet' - The Globe and Mail - 0 views

www.theglobeandmail.com/...page2

canada work trends retraining GoC

shared by Omar Yaqub on 30 Nov 10 - Cached
  • The other challenge for policy makers is predicting labour market demand – just because hiring is strong in a field now doesn’t mean it will stay that way in two or three years time
  • retraining can backfire when there’s no demand at the end of it
  • best bang for the buck would be in investing in the basics – literacy, English-as-a-second-language training and helping people complete high school.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • solid studies tend to suggest [retraining] is not the saving grace. It's not the best thing since sliced bread,” he says. Academic literature “tends to show little or no impact on a cost-benefit analysis.
  • best way to track the effectiveness of retraining is to compare one group that gets training with a similar group that doesn’t
  • Apprenticeships, co-op programs and close links with local employers tends to improve outcomes, he says.
Omar Yaqub

City joins regional marketing effort | Local News | St. Albert Gazette - 0 views

www.stalbertgazette.com/...SAG0301

shared by Omar Yaqub on 04 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • four sectors on which to focus its growth efforts: agri-food, medical devices, clean technology and information technology
Omar Yaqub

Edmonton Social Planning Council - Hidden in Plain Sight: housing challenges of newcome... - 0 views

www.edmontonsocialplanning.ca/...271

alberta immigrants

shared by Omar Yaqub on 11 Jan 11 - Cached
  • notable increase in housing difficulties experienced by newcomers (nation-wide and locally) increasing reliance on immigration for Calgary’s economic growth intensifying disparities faced by immigrants in finding and maintaining appropriate employment impacts of income and employment disparities on housing outcomes
  • average percentage of immediate family after-tax income spent on housing was 50 per cent 23 percent of responders reported worrying about their housing situation all the time 30 per cent reported that their housing situation was worse in Canada than in their home country only 10 and 7 per cent reported that being close to their cultural/national community and faith community respectively was something they liked about where they live the most commonly reported resource for help with finding housing was friends (60 per cent), compared with 13.5 per cent for family and 12.8 per cent for immigrant services
  • increase the number of affordable housing options that are appropriate for newcomers in terms of size, location, and proximity to amenities ensure settlement funding recognizes housing as critical to settlement and provides adequate resources enhance collaboration and communication between the homeless and settlement sectors to increase joint program design, planning, and service delivery for newcomers
Omar Yaqub

SEE - Edmonton News & Views - News & Views - Planning School Possible For U of A - 0 views

www.seemagazine.com/...chool-possible-for-u-of-a-5111

edmonton education

shared by Omar Yaqub on 18 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • The biggest impact a planning school would have is bringing a good brain trust of urban designers to Edmonton, and getting people to talk about planning in a more serious manner,
  • Currently, budding urban planners must leave Edmonton in order to continue their education. That’s what happened to urban planner and transit advocate Brian Gould. He left over two years ago to get his masters in urban planning at the University of California, Berkeley, and now lives in Vancouver. The 24-year-old helped establish the Transit Riders Union of Edmonton (TRUE), and wrote on transit issues for a local daily.
  • “Edmontonians being trained in the city, that’s a benefit right there,” he says, “but there’s also a steady stream of free work coming out of studio projects.”
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  • Edmonton may not fare well against other major cities, however, Kaba says: “A planning school would be a really good first step.”
Omar Yaqub

A comprehensive intercultural city strategy: Education - 0 views

www.coe.int/...education_en.asp

education

shared by Omar Yaqub on 03 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Bradford, the education authority found that in some neighbourhoods schools were increasingly polarising into becoming all white or all-non white. This was allowing little opportunity for children to learn more about each other. A process of linking between over 70 local schools has now led to much closer co-operation and joint working between staff and pupils. Pupils have on average made 2.6 new cross-cultural friendships since the project began
  • twinning
  • TDSB provides for low-achieving students individual support in the classroom and access to language learning in the students’ native language. TDSB supports also efforts to involve parents, neighbourhoods and ethnic communities.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Toronto
  • Omar Yaqub on 03 Feb 11
     
    Elements of an intercultural city strategy: Education
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