Quebec Regional Partnership
Ensuring skills training is relevant and accessible to Quebec’s diverse workforce will be a key focus in addressing the region’s labour shortage, and is vital to building a robust economy across the province and across Canada.
We are partnering with the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail (CPMT), to ensure workers, employers and policymakers can respond to the demographic, technological and environmental factors transforming the region’s economy. The CPMT is a provincial, consultative organization that convenes relevant business, labour, education, community and government stakeholders, all with the goal of improving the labour market.
Over three years, the $20 million partnership is supporting 68 partner organizations to ensure Quebec is well poised to support the workforce of the future. In particular, testing ways to help underrepresented groups participate fully in Quebec’s labour market will provide insights and promising practices that can be applied across the broader skills ecosystem in Canada, as our population grows increasingly diverse.
The partnership focuses on three priority areas:
Quebec future skills reference framework
The Future Skills reference framework provides labour market partners with common language, definitions and principles to address the future jobs skills so vital to the Quebec economy. The framework provides a broad approach to skills development, where sector partners caners can pick any number of the 10 referential skills, apply them together in their industry, and test their validity.
Ensuring labour market participation by underrepresented groups
Ensuring participation in the labour market by underrepresented groups will be key to maintaining a healthy economy. Partner organizations will focus on the integration and job retention of people in these groups through research, testing new approaches, and facilitating and co-ordinating action by key labour market groups.
Increasing the participation of women in STEM fields
Women are underrepresented in occupations in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known as STEM, including jobs where there are vacancies. Partner organizations will focus on increasing the proportion of women in STEM fields through requalifying and upgrading their skills and supporting organizations in integrating, retaining and advancing women.
Partner organizations
Through research, testing new approaches or the development of tools, all 68 partner organizations are supporting the Quebec skills training ecosystem and have an impact on key populations, economic sectors and communities.
For example:
- Formabois, an organization that provides continuing education in the wood processing sector, received $1.8M to train immigrants from different backgrounds in industrial mechanics and production equipment operation. The goal is to find a pathway to better integrate these workers into the Quebec production chain and to overcome a labour shortage in the sector.
- Centre de services scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys received $974,000 to develop tools to help vocational training teachers integrate the skills the province’s economy needs now and in the future into their teaching and practices.
- Bureau du Cinéma et de la télévision du Québec received $1.3M to address the growing shortage of workers in the film and television industry, and the lack of representation and retention of underrepresented groups in the industry. This project will establish apprenticeship standards that meet the industry’s targeted needs and promote training to various cultural communities, including emerging groups and those changing careers.