“Having the basic skills to learn more skills is important to staying in the workforce.” – Union Representative in the Supplemental Business/Labour Telephone Survey

• Several of the people we spoke with during the consultation said the business community doesn’t generally think of education as a critical issue – but that as soon as a major new employer comes to town, training and retraining become big issues.

An Economic Issue in Which We Need to Invest…

“Literacy gets good media coverage, but only as a charity on the ‘community page’ of the newspaper … We need to make a more compelling case.” – Community Development Worker during Consultation

“Workforce education is about being competitive and reducing costs. You get a good return on the investment made.” – Employer in the Supplemental Business/Labour Telephone Survey

“If our workers don’t have the ability to read or write well, they won’t be very productive.” – Employer in the Supplemental Business/Labour Telephone Survey

“In order to stay competitive, we need highly skilled and flexible workers who are able to learn new skills and adjust to change.” – Employer in the Supplemental Business/Labour Telephone Survey

“We need well educated workers to perform. Self esteem and pride are important to having healthy workers. It improves business. Our people are our equity.” – Employer in the Supplemental Business/Labour Telephone Survey

“Industry is becoming more technical and automated. The lower end jobs are being eliminated. It is stressful for members to be out of a job and to need upgrading.” – Labour representative during Consultation

“There are lots of well functioning people, but they lose jobs because of low literacy, then stay on our caseload too long. They work well, present well, and have experience – but still need literacy.” – Government Representative During Consultation

• Throughout the consultation, we heard from employment counseling agencies that 25% of their clients have low levels of literacy. They also said some 50%-60% have less than grade 12.

• One college ABE administrator described his institution’s students as having a low socioeconomic background – with many on income assistance and many from First Nations communities.

• The correlation between unemployment or reliance on income assistance and literacy that was evidenced in the IALS data was borne out in many of our community consultations. In one community, a survey of unemployed men revealed that 51% of them had low levels of literacy.