Thank you.
I'm pleased to appear before you today on behalf of Restaurants Canada, formerly the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, or CRFA.
Restaurant Canada represents one of the largest sectors of the Canadian economy, with $68 billion in sales and almost 1.2 million employees. That's more than fishing, forestry, utilities, mining, and agriculture combined. An additional 250,000 people are indirectly employed as suppliers to the industry. With 18 million visits to restaurants daily, our industry contributes to the economy of virtually every Canadian community. Restaurants provide more first-time jobs than any other industry, and 22% of Canadians got their career start in a food service business.
I'm going to skip over a lot of what I was planning to say, because there's a shortage of time.
Employers in our industry are actively recruiting from a large range of labour pools and turning more and more to groups currently underrepresented in the labour market, such as first nations, disabled, recent immigrants, older individuals, and social insurance recipients.
The provinces play an important role in coordinating the work of organizations representing these groups and linking them with employers.
Restaurants Canada wants to work with all interested parties, social and non-profit organizations, schools, community colleges, training providers, and all levels of government to develop the best policy framework to meet the employment and training needs of employees and employers. Of course, this has to be looked at in the context of our overall education and immigration system.
Most employers in our industry would be unaware of labour support programs offered by the provinces. They would certainly not be able to distinguish an LMDA program from any of their other offerings.
I would say that amongst those who are aware of provincial employment and training supports, the experience has been mixed. The training at times has been oriented to the personal interests of the unemployed worker rather than the needs of business, or the training has been too theoretical and not applicable to the job.
For example, one of our biggest employment needs is for cooks. Unfortunately, we've found people enrolling in cooking courses to enhance their culinary skills but with no intention of working in a restaurant kitchen, or registering for tourism courses where they may become good ambassadors for the industry but lack specific job skills. Also, the term “cook” is very broad, making it challenging to tailor cooking programs to restaurant needs.
I'm going to focus on three recommendations to help ensure that the $2 billion allocated to labour market development agreements better meets the needs of employers and employees—the employers, who fund 60% of the cost, with employees funding the rest.
First, we believe there is a need for better labour market information. I was pleased to read yesterday that this may be coming. Although this need extends beyond LMDAs, LMDA forms a very significant portion of funding for labour market policy. Better and more granular labour supply-and-demand information in terms of job categories and geographic regions is needed to ensure investments are focused on where they are most needed to close job and skill gaps.
In addition to being more detailed, this information needs to be accessible, user-friendly, and available on a timely basis. While the data needs to be captured at the local level, we believe it has to be coordinated amongst provinces for use at the national level. We also need to collect information on which interventions work and which ones are less effective. This way, comparisons can be made between jurisdictions, and programming and agreements can be adjusted, which brings me to our next recommendation: the need for national standards of accountability.
The labour market development agreements are negotiated on a bilateral basis. While we recognize that labour market needs differ significantly from region to region, we believe that there need to be national standards and some type of mechanism in place that would result in better sharing of information amongst jurisdictions with regard to priorities, plans, and results.
Although it is changing, there was a time when the metric used by most jurisdictions to measure success was program enrolment, rather than number of job placements and the duration or success of job placements. We believe standards are needed for program spending and the measurement of outcomes so that there is accountability to employers and employees for spending.
Our third recommendation to the committee is to recognize the value of on-the-job training in program agreements. The provincially funded programs are often too focused on formal third party training and ignore the investment businesses make, particularly restaurant businesses, in on-the-job training, where managers and supervisors work one on one with employees, many who are first-time entrants to the workforce.
Restaurants are a great training ground for most careers. Our jobs teach critical skills, including personal responsibility, teamwork, problem-solving, creative thinking, and accountability.
Our industry provides that all-important first step on the career ladder for thousands of Canadians. The importance of early on-the-job experience on any resumé cannot be underestimated. According to a Stats Canada study entitled “Unemployment Dynamics Among Canada's Youth”, more than 28% of unemployed young people between 15 and 24 years of age in 2012 were youth who had never worked, many waiting to finish their education before trying to find a first job.
I want to mention that I do agree with Judith's comments about employment insurance, but we don't have time to get into that right now.
To conclude, let's make sure that a focus of LMDA agreements is to ensure that Canadians gain real work experience, with placing unemployed Canadians in available jobs as the overriding priority.
This will best be achieved by working from better labour market information that includes consultation with employer groups on the jobs they will need filled and in which part of the country; by the establishment of enhanced standards of accountability based on the number of people trained and placed in real jobs, not simply enrolled in time-occupying programs; and by recognizing as much as possible the informal training that employers provide.
LMDA programs supply training with a major emphasis on teaching substantial technical hard-edge skills, providing Canadians with a better chance of hitting the ground running and an increased chance of securing and succeeding in a new career once they have completed an LMDA program.