Scaling Up Skills Development

The Future Skills Centre (FSC) is pleased to announce a new investment of $25.9 million in funding for the expansion of 10 projects that have shown early signs of success and the potential for wider impact through regional or sectoral replication, adaptation or broader scale expansion.

To strengthen skills development in Canada, FSC aims to support both workers and employers. We strive to foster innovation and identify best practices that can be adapted elsewhere to benefit various sectors and regions of the country.

These ten diverse projects have shown promise, such as through strong or accelerated completion rates, good job placement statistics, approaches that engage with employers from the start, and/or initiatives that combine wraparound supports with education and job training. Together these projects are making great strides, since they are driven by the demands of the marketplace and the needs of both employers and workers, and are thus crucial to a sustained recovery.

These projects move from aspiration to action – serving as models for skills development that can usher in a new era of economic prosperity in which all Canadians can share. Although the bulk of the projects are relatively new, they are already offering lessons on the best approaches to skills development. We are committed to sharing the findings gleaned from these projects, although we are still at the beginning of our learning journey.

Together with Blueprint, our consortium partner, we will be working closely with the project partners on designing evaluations that ensure reliable and timely evidence is generated from the implementation of expanded projects, especially related to what is working, for whom, and under what conditions. Embedded in this process is the dissemination of rapid insights and lessons to other practitioners, policy makers, and other groups.

Explore the 10 projects scaling up

Forklift operator moving a pallet of goods

Material Handling 4.0: Building pathways to employment for disadvantaged groups

Help new and current material handlers in Hamilton to transition to new job opportunities within the supply chain sector.
Diverse team on laptops having a group meeting

AspireAtlantic

Creating a program to bridge the gap between employer demand and workforce attachment in Nova…
Person at whiteboard presenting to an individual with laptop

In Motion & Momentum+ (IM&M+): Building resilience, hope and sustainable futures

This program assists people who are distant from the labour market in acquiring key life…
Diverse youth working on laptop; person leaning in to provide support

Upskilling Canadian youth for in-demand tech careers

Launching low-income, young adults into IT careers by providing professional and technical skills training, job…
Young business people working at office on a new project.

ADaPT: Digital competencies

New skills training program to test a blended approach for digital and professional competencies.
Employee taking hand-written notes while reading from a computer screen

Assessing and developing workplace employability skills with ESAT

Development of the Employability Skills Assessment Tool (ESAT), a cloud-based tool to measure an individual’s…
Young person in front of Pride flag

What works for work? Employment integration in youth service hubs across Canada

The project implements and tests the Individual Placement and Support (IPS) intervention among youth who…
woman sitting on luggage at the Swiss airport

Tourism Hospitality Emergency Recovery (THER)

Rapid-response project to design and test industry-specific, skills-focused recovery options for the hard-hit tourism and…
Three professional women brainstorming in a meeting with their laptops.

FAST: Facilitating Access to Skilled Talent

Testing expanded occupation streams for an online skills assessment and development platform to help newcomers…
View all projects in our portfolio

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