Skills Work!®
For over 20 years Skills Canada-Ontario has been the voice delivering the message to young people across the province that skilled trade and technological careers really do work.
Our mission, to promote careers in the skilled trades and technologies as viable, first choice career options, is driven by two economic terms that ultimately shape our workforce – supply and demand.
On the demand side, there is plenty of research telling us that there is a need for workers in all sectors that we promote, including construction, motive power, service, industrial and technology. On the supply side, we know that young people are not choosing skilled trades and technologies careers, which will leave a skill gap as a result of an ageing workforce.
The challenge for our organization is that careers in the skilled trades and technologies are perceived to be boring, dirty and low-paying. To overcome these myths and misconceptions, our team continues to design and deliver programs that provide young people with the opportunity to experience first-hand the joy and reward that can come from pursuing a skilled trade or technological career.
The cornerstone of our programs is the Ontario Technological Skills Competition. This three-day event showcases the talent and passion of the students that compete in more than 60 skilled trade and technology contest areas.
For the other 362 days of the year our team is actively travelling across province igniting the minds of young people through our other, yet equally important, programs.
The in-school presentation program continues to reach thousands of students in both elementary and secondary schools that are affiliated with Skills Canada – Ontario. Many more young women are considering a career in the skilled trades and technologies as a result of our “Skills Work!® for Women” Networking Dinner program and our Young Women’s Conferences. Our Cardboard Boat Races continue to make a big splash in each community we visit.
Our newest initiative is a social media campaign. The goals of this campaign are to increase the number of people we reach each year, enhance our audiences’ understanding of our mission and award-winning programming, and finally, to further position Skills Canada - Ontario as the voice for careers in the skilled trades and technologies.
As the Executive Director of this incredible organization I would like to issue two challenges to those who will be following us on this blog and the other social media tools we have created.
The first is to consider how skilled trades and technologies impact your life each day. I am sure that each of you will be able to come up with several examples of how critical these careers are in both our personal and professional environments.
The second challenge is to encourage you to become engaged in our social media campaign. Comment on our blog. Retweet our tweets. Follow us on Facebook. And finally, recommend us to a young person, parent, educator, or someone in your personal network that may benefit from being involved with Skills Canada – Ontario.
Skills Work!® Let us show you how.
Gail Smyth
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