{"id":116480,"date":"2025-09-03T10:25:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116480\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T10:25:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:25:14","slug":"training-and-education-investment-is-in-decline-in-canada-and-this-is-a-big-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/116480\/","title":{"rendered":"Training and education investment is in decline in Canada, and this is a big problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

In terms of money spent and time invested on employee training annually, companies in Canada lag those of the country’s G7 peers.Getty Images<\/p>\n

Danny Parys runs a recruitment and human resources firm.<\/p>\n

I heard there was once this thing called \u201con-the-job training.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea was that businesses would take an active role in developing their workforces. This was seen as an investment that built relevant skills aligned with the actual tasks of the job.<\/p>\n

Instead of spending time and money on recruiting the perfect candidate, businesses were able to build local talent pools. In return, employees gained marketable skills, were more engaged, felt more valued and were often more loyal to their employers because of this initial investment.<\/p>\n

But over the past two decades, training and education spending by employers has declined by approximately 40 per cent. Formal training programs are now as rare as an airplane ashtray.<\/p>\n

In Canada, the annual amount spent on training is a meagre $240 per employee \u2013 less than all our G7 peers in terms of money spent and hours of instruction.<\/p>\n

The burden of training and education has shifted from businesses to universities, colleges and, ultimately, young people trying to enter the job market, in the form of higher tuition fees, larger student loans and delayed career earnings.<\/p>\n

Tech jobs were supposed to be the safe career route. What changed?<\/a><\/p>\n

The decline in investment in on-the-job training has been devastating.<\/p>\n

Universities weren\u2019t designed to be job training centres. Most educational institutions were meant to be hubs for research, to improve critical thinking skills and to provide a broad education to their students.<\/p>\n

Yet Canadians increasingly expect universities to churn out job-ready professionals.<\/p>\n

Even if businesses could communicate the skills they need to universities, which they haven\u2019t been able to do effectively, research priorities often differ from immediate employer demands, creating a mismatch in faculty expertise and in-demand skills.<\/p>\n

Institutions designed as job training centres, such as colleges and vocational schools, aren\u2019t faring much better, as technological and market changes create new skill requirements faster than their curricula can adjust.<\/p>\n

It should thus come as no surprise that in the first quarter of this year the unemployment rate for new grads hit 11.2 per cent, the highest in two decades, and that 80 per cent of the increase involved people under the age of 35.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that Canada is one of the most educated countries in the world, 77 per cent of Canadian businesses say they are unable to find suitably skilled candidates for their available jobs.<\/p>\n

Some suggestions from the business community, such as streamlining credential recognition processes interprovincially and internationally, or lobbying for tax credits to invest in employee training and upskilling, may help solve the problem.<\/p>\n

AI becoming unavoidable for recruiters and job seekers<\/a><\/p>\n

Ultimately, though, businesses must recognize that there is no such thing as a job-ready graduate and that organizations must learn how to train employees again \u2013 even if it means investing<\/a> a portion of their soaring corporate profits to do so.<\/p>\n

This also means businesses must develop training programs to align the skills of candidates who come from different industries, or who have foreign experience, with their new roles.<\/p>\n

It also means hiring new grads for entry-level roles, a concept that seems all but forgotten for the many job seekers who are regularly told they need five years of experience for those jobs. <\/p>\n

And though many companies may be tempted by AI to eliminate entry-level roles altogether<\/a>, the risks of doing so are great.<\/p>\n

For businesses, breaking the career ladder for new grads will lead to entrenched skill gaps and succession challenges years down the line.<\/p>\n

More broadly, the outlook for new grads who are forced to fire off resum\u00e9s into the LinkedIn and Indeed abyss indefinitely will lead to overall earnings losses and hinder their career progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: In terms of money spent and time invested on employee training annually, companies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-116480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}