Money for Skills Training in Ontario

According to Ontario Workforce Shortage Coalition, there is a shortage of skilled labour in Ontario and the challenges will intensify in the years ahead. The organization expects Ontario will be short more than 360,000
skilled employees by 2025.

The Government of Canada announced in February that they will invest nearly $1.2 billion in Ontario's labour market over the next six years to help bridge the skills gap. The program, referred to as the Canada-Ontario Labour Market Agreement (LMA) begins April 1, 2008 with $194 million to get things started. This is part of a nation-wide campaign that will see $500 million distributed per year over the next six year. Funds will be allocated to the provinces and territories on an equal per capita basis.

These funds will help individuals and workers who are not eligible for training under the Employment Insurance (EI) program to improve their skills. The funding will also help individuals too often excluded from the labour force, including Aboriginal people, immigrants, persons with disabilities, as well as those workers who lack literacy and essential skills, get the training they need to obtain meaningful and sustainable employment.

The Ontario Governement will direct the funding in the areas of Technical skills training, labour market integration of immigrants, foundation skills training and supports (literacy and basic trade skills for example), and labour market supports for persons with disabilities.

While neither the Federal or Provinical government media releases on the new Labour Market Agreement indicate just how YOU can access these funds to develop your skills, there are a couple of quick ways you can take a look into it as the fund will likely be filtered into existing services already being delivered by the province under the old agreement.


If you visit the Government of Ontario's website, there is a search tool to find employment and training services in your area, the URL is http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/tcu/search.html

You can also call the Employment Ontario Hotline at 1-800-387-5656 or in Toronto 416-325-4084. I spoke with a counselor at the Employment Ontario Hotline who indicated that most programmes currently being offered are for youth and those currently collecting Employment Insurance (EI). As mentioned above, the new LMA will increase the scope to include others, but will not take effect until April 1st, and it is still not precisely clear how these resources will be distributed or who will be able to access them.

We'll keep you posted!

Need a job now? View Greater Toronto Job Listings