This report reviews the key policy changes in recent federal and provincial restructuring of labour market training for women’s access to training and employment services in Ontario. The report identifies key issues for community-based trainers across the province, and integrates the results of focus groups held in Toronto, Windsor, and Ottawa and consultations with women’s directors on the 25 local labour force development boards.

Occupational research, particularly in health and education, indicates that institutional and labour market restructuring is proceeding along gender-based lines. This has serious implications for programmes, employment services and adjustment strategies for women. Self-employment and part-time work – voluntary and involuntary – are among the fastest growing employment forms affecting mostly women. These patterns create specific training and adjustment needs and opportunities and form an under-researched area of considerable importance in assessing, planning and delivering labour market training and employment services to enhance the economic security of Ontario women.

Public equity policy and programmes, however, have all but disappeared under the combined impact of federal and provincial restructuring and privatisation. Trainers are concerned about their continued ability to provide specialised services to those most at risk. Access to training has become more individualised and market-based, providing short-term interventions that usually last one day or even less.

In the focus groups, ACTEW asked women’s training agencies to discuss the following questions:

• Over the past two years, what changes have you seen or experienced regarding access to training and employment programs and services?
• Are there groups or individuals that were able to access services that are no longer receiving those services? What groups or individuals?
• What can we do provincially to lobby/work/create awareness of the issues?

Community based training programs have traditionally maintained high rates of participation and retention among women. They have provided the most accessible vehicles for labour market entry and re-entry. As the burden of tuition and related costs is shifted to individual participants, agencies are concerned about the likely impact on women and visible minorities. Women seeking to re-enter the paid workforce may have little recourse to programmes other than work-for-welfare. Agencies are concerned that their participants will also face unmanageable debt-loads at a time when they most need income support and related assistance to cover child-care, dependent care, transportation and other expenses.

Agencies have developed a wide range of training and employment services responding directly to the multiple barriers women face in a competitive labour market. Community agencies recognise the need for a continuum of services with multiple points of access. The report identifies a number of possible “next steps” for a broader strategy for community based training. Local programmes need to work more closely together through regional networks, identifying areas for collaboration and standardisation guided by an articulation of “best practices” for the sector. Community programmes can also collaborate with local boards to establish servicing levels and multiple delivery options based on community, regional and provincial needs and priorities.

Nevertheless, in the absence of supportive policy and funding for their training and employment services needs, women and other equity seeking groups will continue to be denied equitable access to the labour market and to secure employment for reasonable wages and in safe working conditions. In this respect, the proposed federal transfer of labour market training to the Ontario government represents a challenge and an opportunity.

This ACTEW research project was funded by Status of Women Canada. The full report is available from: Advocates for Community Based Education and Training for Women, 401 Richmond St. W., Suite 355, Toronto, ON, M5V 3A8; tel: 416-599-3590; email: actew@web.net