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Omar Yaqub

http://premier.alberta.ca/PlansInitiatives/economic/RPCES_ShapingABFuture_Report_web2.pdf - 0 views

premier.alberta.ca/...hapingABFuture_Report_web2.pdf

alberta trends work immigrants government

shared by Omar Yaqub on 09 May 11 - No Cached
    • Omar Yaqub
      Omar Yaqub on 09 May 11
       
      work with the federal government to change the immigration system - to help address critical shortages of workers at all skill levelsIt is in the interests of all Canadians that the Alberta economy remains strong. To realize the full potential of the oil sands and broaden the economic base, the province will need people from outside the country as well as migrants from other parts of Canada. The provincial government and industry must collaborate in demonstrating to the federal government the critical need to at least double the caps on the provincial immigrant nominee program. Advocate for immediate changes that allow temporary foreign workers with solid records to apply for permanent resident status while they are still in the country. Continue to work with the federal government to institute longer-term changes to better align the national immigration program with strategies for economic growth, making it more responsive to changing economic conditions and industry's workforce needs.Determine what is getting in the way of swift assessment of foreign trades and professional credentials related to these scarce skills, and remove barriers to full recognition of qualifications that meet Alberta standards. Pre-certify credentials from selected offshore institutions, and create a mechanism that allows all immigrants to determine their credential status before moving here. Expand initiatives such as the Immigrant Access Fund to help immigrants achieve credential recognition.
  • Omar Yaqub on 09 May 11
     
    Give a new alberta water authority the mandate to innovate in water stewardship, and realize the full benefit of our precious water assets Alberta needs all its citizens to develop the mindset and skills to thrive in today's world and drive economic growth - to be resilient, lifelong learners, healthy and productive, eager to achieve and perform, globally connected and informed seeking talent around the globe Like other countries with aging populations, Alberta in 2040 will be competing to attract the brightest and the best talent to the province's workforce to fill critical gaps. As early as 2030, demographers predict that domestic workforce growth in Alberta and Canada will have stalled, although higher birth rates in our Aboriginal population could indicate potential for some domestic population growth. Encouraging seniors who wish to stay in the workforce longer to do so could mitigate (but not solve) the problem. Employers could abolish their mandatory retirement age and other policies that discriminate on the basis of age.Employers in this province are already concerned about shortages of people to fill jobs at all skill levels, well aware that energy booms create huge demands for workers in service sectors as well as in construction and labour-intensive oil sands production. The very specialized skills and knowledge essential to success in broadening the economic base are in short supply in the province now because there have not historically been good opportunities in these areas. One key requirement is more people experienced in founding and growing technologybased businesses. While productivity improvements and the application of innovative business models may slow growth in the labour supply gap or change the mix of skills required over the  next three decades, we still expect to see an increasing  need to attract immigrants to the province to fill key gaps  at all skill levels.The number of immigrants to Alberta fr
Omar Yaqub

Manpower Inc. - Growing War for Talents Looms as U.S. Economy Continues to Recover - 0 views

www.manpower.com/...releasedetail.cfm

work us trends competitiveness

shared by Omar Yaqub on 07 Feb 11 - Cached
  • Growing War for Talents Looms as U.S. Economy Continues to Recover
  • the world has entered a new age, where employers will be awakened to the power of humans as the future drivers of economic growth as access to talent replaces access to capital as the key economic differentiator.
  • Aging workforces, the collaborative power of rapidly-evolving technologies, the need for companies to do more with less, and the problem of the skills young people are being equipped with not matching the skills businesses need are converging, making talent attraction and retention critical in order for organizations to gain a competitive edge
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  • As the economy begins to click into second gear, employers are hiring but they are doing so with extreme caution. They will only hire individuals who have the exact specificity of skills they are looking for,"
Omar Yaqub

Multicultural meritocracy - 0 views

www.financialpost.com/...story.html

immigrants work canada

shared by Omar Yaqub on 09 May 11 - Cached
  • Yezdi Pavri, vice-chairman of professional services firm Deloitte in Canada. "There is a competitive business advantage to having a diverse workforce and drawing from the widest talent pool possible. At Deloitte we have created an inclusive meritocracy. We have proven just as other organizations have that diversity leads to innovation. When you capitalize on the different experiences people bring you come up with better solutions. Now, many of our clients push us to have diverse teams. The worst thing you can do these days is go to a client with a team of five white men because that does not represent what the market or what our clients look like.
  • Here then are some strategies small businesses can use to attract and retain skilled immigrant workers:
  • "Make it known that as a small employer you are interested in hiring skilled immigrants,"
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  • ALLIES [Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies] is an umbrella organization that reaches across the country. It's a good place to start
  • Conduct interviews in the applicant's first language. "From a recruiting perspective, we are out looking for people with the right skills and often we will find individuals who have tremendous technical capabilities but English may be a struggle and so they have trouble representing themselves in an interview situation,"
  • "If we bring someone on board, we go through an extensive orientation process and part of that includes offering them the opportunity to take English language courses or other types of assimilation courses. We also fund continuing learning across our teams. That is a value for us and it helps us retain our talent." Thales Canada's Toronto location has a 95% reten-tion rate among new immigrants.
  • Create a buddy system. "We partner every new employee with a buddy who is not their coach or manager and who helps them navigate Deloitte,"
  • "What is the right way to dress? What are the right cultural protocols? People coming from other parts of the world don't have the common protocols we take for granted. This buddy system has been tremendously effective. A couple of years after a skilled immigrant has joined us and assimilated into the culture, they are often the most keen to act as buddies to new people coming in.
  • Start small. "We piloted our strategy, nurturing our leaders and instituted cultural awareness training,"
  • "Organizations like TRIEC can help you with cultural training, often at no cost. This will help you identify cultural differences and then figure out ways to address them tactfully."
Omar Yaqub

ATTRACTING AND RETAINING TALENT TO COLUMBUS - 0 views

www.columbuspartnership.com/...mber-attract-retain-talent.pdf

retention Work immigrants

shared by Omar Yaqub on 20 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Omar Yaqub on 20 Jul 11
     
    young professionals
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

Making plans for the future - 0 views

www.thestarphoenix.com/story_print.html

work canada succession

shared by Omar Yaqub on 08 Dec 10 - Cached
  • Tighter labour market means businesses must have succession plan
  • Calgary Economic Development
  • Companies that don't place a high priority on identifying, mentoring and training high-potential employees to move through the talent pipeline are going to be left in the dust when the economy picks up and the baby boom generation retires during the next decade
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  • Lafarge also reaches out to university graduates for long-term succession planning, visiting campuses across the west to raise awareness of career pathways within what has traditionally been seen as the male-dominated industry of building materials.
  • Diversity is another large component to its succession plans.
  • Too often, large corporate divisions develop succession plans in silos, making it difficult to align workforce needs into the bigger entity's long-term HR strategy
Omar Yaqub

This Just In: Job Recovery Rx: Worker Skill Training February 7, 2011 - 0 views

blogs.dc-intl.com/...just-in-job-recovery-rx-w.html

work trends competitiveness

shared by Omar Yaqub on 08 Feb 11 - Cached
  • Job Recovery Rx: Worker Skill Training
  • Neal Peirce’s latest Citistates column suggests that the solution to the U.S.’s impending talent shortage lies in targeted training programs in the country’s metro regions.
  • Cities are beginning to experiment with innovative pilot programs, including those like “Chicago Career Tech,” an intensive six-month, six-day-a-week course that retrains middle-class workers for technology careers.
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  • targeted efforts inside our metro regions.
  • Colleges and community colleges, for example, presumably produce graduates who can think, analyze, read manuals. “But they’re turning out people who can’t do anything” — as simple, Walshok suggests, as working with spreadsheets, building a website or describing a complex piece of technology like an iPad application. So targeted post-graduate job training becomes critical.
  • demand for science and engineering jobs has been growing by about 5 percent a year, and the country has an estimated 2 million jobs unfilled because of lack of job skills
  • “Chicago Career Tech,” for example, is a new program launched by Mayor Richard M. Daley to take in middle-class workers adrift in the current recession and retrain them for technology careers
  • welders. Close to 100 percent of welding school graduates get snapped up by industries spread from aircraft manufacturing and ship building to erecting and repairing bridges — not to mention mass transit and railways along with green industrioes such as building wind energy turbines.
  • twice as many welders are retiring as being trained — the U.S. shortage may be as high as 200,000, in a field that pays solid wages.
Omar Yaqub

Welcome - Ottawa Tech Centre - 0 views

www.ottawatechstudents.com

education canada

shared by Omar Yaqub on 26 Jan 11 - Cached
  • This program was created to address the declining enrollment in post-secondary technology courses.  If Ottawa is to maintain its position as a technology leader, it is critical that we ensure that we have a sustainable talent pipeline. 
  • the programs with the greatest impact on the students were the ones that allowed them to explore leading edge technology under the mentorship of industry experts. 
Omar Yaqub

Report Urges Increased Labor Mobility to Meet Demands for Economic Growth | Human Resou... - 0 views

www.workforce.com/...-mobility-meet-demands-for.php

shared by Omar Yaqub on 02 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Report Urges Increased Labor Mobility to Meet Demands for Economic Growth
  • Future labor and skills shortages among industrialized nations could be solved in part by boosting the global mobility of talent, according to a new report.  
  • In Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, expected immigration and birth rates will not offset the workforce losses caused by aging populations
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  • The study adds that foreign-born workers with university degrees or equivalent qualifications make up just 2 percent of the European labor market compared with 4.5 percent in the United States and nearly 10 percent in Canada.
  • Omar Yaqub on 02 Feb 11
     
    Report Urges Increased Labor Mobility to Meet Demands for Economic Growth
Omar Yaqub

globeandmail.com: 'We're getting there, just 40 years later' - 0 views

v1.theglobeandmail.com/...TPComment

shared by Omar Yaqub on 07 Feb 11 - Cached
  • Calgary's mayor tells Marcus Gee how he plans to realize Jane Jacobs' vision on the Prairies. He just has to convince the developers
  • But can he get Calgary to buy in? To an outsider, at least, sprawling, car-dependent Calgary seems to be an unlikely place to realize his Jane Jacobs-inspired ideas about livable cities.
  • Building Up: Making Canada's Cities Magnets for Talent and Engines of Development, he argued that the successful city of the future will be a place in which: "People live where they work and play. Density is high. Public transit is a preferred choice. Young people can afford to live downtown. Classes and socio-economic backgrounds are mixed ...
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  • Calgary seems to violate every one of those principles. With no natural barriers - no lake like Toronto's, no mountains and sea as in Vancouver - Canada's fourth-biggest city sprawls north, south, east and west across the rolling foothills of southern Alberta.
  • Density is low. With the same-sized footprint as the five boroughs of New York, Calgary has one-10th the population.
  • his own immigrant neighbourhood of Coral Springs in the city's northeast, the proportion of non-white residents has soared to 82 per cent from 50 per cent a few years ago, while in the southern half of Calgary, he says, all but 8 per cent are white.
  • three-point plan.
  • First, develop unused downtown lands. Calgary has a bustling downtown with thickets of office towers, including the rising Norman Foster-designed skyscraper the Bow. But there is a lot of barren, underused space in between. Mr. Nenshi has high hopes for the East Village, a once-sketchy area that is to be revived with a new music centre and housing projects.
  • Second, encourage "spot intensification" of residential neighbourhoods. A recent study showed that 80 per cent of neighbourhoods were actually losing population density as householders saw their children grow up and move out. He would like to see developers build high-rises around transit stops and redevelop low-rise strip malls into mid-rise retail and residential buildings.
  • Third, build smarter suburbs. That means more subdivisions with a mix of housing types - single-family, townhouse, apartment block - in place of uniform tracts of identical, knock-off houses. He points to the success of Garrison Woods, a new neighbourhood on former military lands with double the density of a traditional suburb. The developer designed it to be walkable, with shops and schools nearby.
  • Mr. Nenshi wants to charge developers higher fees for building on the city's edges, arguing that the city effectively subsidizes suburban development by charging too little to supply infrastructure and services.
  • It's not that he wants to abolish suburbs. "We have to recognize that a lot of people want to live in them," he says. "I'm not interested in forcing everybody to live in a high-rise building downtown. This isn't Hong Kong." He just wants the price of a place in the suburbs to reflect the true cost of putting it there.
  • When did Jane Jacobs write The Death and Life of Great American Cities? We're getting there, just 40 years later," Mr. Nenshi says.
  • When a project called Imagine Calgary asked residents what they wanted from their city in the future, it found that most wanted to live in a place where they could walk to the store, walk their kids to school, get by with only one car and be surrounded by different kinds of people.
  • If everyone wants that, why aren't we building that?" the mayor says.
Omar Yaqub

CBC News - Edmonton - Alberta 'not happy' with worker visa cuts - 0 views

www.cbc.ca/...visas-workers-alberta.html

edmonton alberta immigrants

shared by Omar Yaqub on 17 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Industry officials in Alberta are questioning the federal government's plan to cut back on visas for skilled workers, saying the province's expanding economy needs more employees.
  • Ed Stelmach. "I know that they are reflecting some of the issues in Ontario. But we are in a completely different position."
  • Overseas visa targets 2010 2011 % change Federal skilled worker visas 69,915 55,900 - 20.0 Provincial nominees visas 36,650 40,300 + 9.0 Total economic class visa 161,630 151,000 - 6.6
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  • "We have an aging work force. We have more people retiring and leaving the workforce than we have coming in."
  • if it's an overall indication of where the federal government is going with immigration visas then certainly we would object to that," said Heidi Harris, a spokeswoman for Alberta's Road Builders and Heavy Construction Association.
  • Ontario's Immigration Minister Eric Hoskins also said the drop in skilled workers could harm the province's economy. He said Ontario will ask Ottawa to reverse the decision as the province negotiates a new immigration agreement this month.
  • "I would say that the growth of Ontario's economy is dependent upon the arrival of talented new Canadians who can come to this province and put their skills to work for our economy.
Omar Yaqub

Pay Teachers More - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...13kristof.html

education

shared by Omar Yaqub on 14 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Until a few decades ago, employment discrimination perversely strengthened our teaching force. Brilliant women became elementary school teachers, because better jobs weren’t open to them. It was profoundly unfair, but the discrimination did benefit America’s children. These days, brilliant women become surgeons and investment bankers — and 47 percent of America’s kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers come from the bottom one-third of their college classes (as measured by SAT scores). The figure is from a study by McKinsey & Company, “Closing the Talent Gap.”
  • Recent scholarship suggests that good teachers, even kindergarten teachers, increase their students’ earnings many years later. Eric A. Hanushek of Stanford University found that an excellent teacher (one a standard deviation better than average, or better than 84 percent of teachers) raises each student’s lifetime earnings by $20,000. If there are 20 students in the class, that is an extra $400,000 generated, compared with a teacher who is merely average.
  • Consider three other countries renowned for their educational performance: Singapore, South Korea and Finland. In each country, teachers are drawn from the top third of their cohort, are hugely respected and are paid well (although that’s less true in Finland). In South Korea and Singapore, teachers on average earn more than lawyers and engineers, the McKinsey study found.
Omar Yaqub

Where Are the Next Cities?| young knowledge workers, Next Generation Consulting, NGC | ... - 0 views

www.areadevelopment.com/...cities-knowledge-workers.shtml

qualityoflife

shared by Omar Yaqub on 27 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • What is a Next City™? Next Cities™ are places with the assets and amenities that attract and retain a young, educated work force. They have bustling city centers, walkable neighborhoods, diverse career opportunities, and vibrant art and music scenes. In 2008, NGC surveyed young professionals in eight cities. These interviews and focus groups with members of the next generation revealed that they choose where to live based on the following seven indexes, listed in order of importance:1. Cost of Lifestyle: Young professionals are just getting started in their careers, and affordability is key. This index includes variables in the national cost of living index, which encompasses a roof over head, food on the table, clothes on the back, and a warm bed at night. 2. Earning: High school guidance counselors tell students that they’ll have between nine and eleven careers in their lifetime. The earning index measures the diversity of employment opportunities, the percentage of jobs in the knowledge-based sector, and average household income.
  • 3. Vitality: How “healthy” is a city? This index measures air and water quality, green space, and a city’s overall health (e.g., obesity, life expectancy, etc.). 4. After Hours: There’s more to life than work. This index counts the places to go and things to do after work and on weekends. 5. Learning: Is the city committed to high quality education for all of its citizens? This index includes measurements related to educational opportunities and expenditures, educational attainment, and accessibility of Wi-Fi hotspots. 6. Around Town: How easy is it to get to where you want to go in a city? This index measures a city’s walkability, airport activity, commute times, and mass transit opportunities. 7. Social Capital: Great talent comes in every race, creed, and color. This index accounts for how open, safe, and accessible your city is to all people. It includes measures of diversity, crime rates, and civic engagement (e.g., voter participation, volunteerism). Jane Jacobs actually coined the phrase “social capital” in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Omar Yaqub

'Severe worker shortages' forecast for Alberta - 0 views

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

Work alberta trends

shared by Omar Yaqub on 06 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • perfect demographic storm is developing in Alberta leading to severe worker shortages for many years to come.
  • Lukaszuk, Alberta’s Minister of Employment and Immigration, said the province is already starting to see labour shortages in some sectors such as the transportation and hospitality industries.
  • “There are companies that simply can’t find workers already,” he said. “There are sectors that are already showing inability to readily find employees at competitive price. And that will only escalate as time goes on.
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  • Many of the Baby Boomer generation are retiring which will create a “massive exodus” of workers. That will create a void in not only numbers but experience in the workforce. The natural population growth is not replacing that exodus. And the retirees will force increased demand for various services from coffee to medical care.
  • Statistics Canada reported that the province’s unemployment rate dipped to 5.4 per cent for the month, down from 5.9 per cent in April. This rate was the third lowest in the country behind Saskatchewan’s 5.0 per cent and Manitoba’s 5.3 per cent. It was also down from 6.7 per cent in May 2010.
  • short-term employment forecast tool to identify potential imbalances in the labour market in the near future. Sixteen occupations were listed as having a significant likelihood of shortages in the next three years.
  • They include retail trade managers; restaurant and food service managers; mechanical engineers; petroleum engineers; computer programmers and interactive media developers; web designers and developers; general practitioners and family physicians; registered nurses; retail trade supervisors; food service supervisors; technical sales specialists, wholesale trade; hairstylists and barbers; estheticians, electrologists and related occupations; construction millwrights and individual mechanics (except textile); heavy-duty equipment mechanics; and motor vehicle body repairers.
  • In Alberta, full-time employment increased by 18,200 while part-time employment decreased by 9,600 from April to May 2011.
  • The following industries had the most employment increases in May from the previous month in the province: Construction, 8,600; Health Care and Social Assistance, 6,300; and Information, Culture and Recreation, 5,300.
  • Knightsbridge Human Capital Solutions has established an executive search Calgary-based practice in Alberta to help clients respond to the emerging talent crisis which some reports say will result in a labour shortfall of 77,000 workers over the next 10 years
  • “From a human capital perspective, this is a critical time for Alberta,” said Mark Hopkins, managing partner. “We believe that companies must effectively manage the leadership gap being created as an aging workforce retires in ever-increasing numbers. At the same time, we are seeing rapidly increasing activity levels, increased technical and commercial demands, and a significant shortage of specialist technical skills.”
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