A CLE includes a reception service, a multi-service room and financial assistance services. Employment services are also provided in most CLEs. Each of them provides resources and services:
Together with its partners in the labour market, Emploi-Québec provides services designed to facilitate integration into society and professions and maintenance, stabilization and creation of jobs by promoting the development of continuing education and training.
Emploi-Québec is an agency (independent unit) within the Ministère de l'Emploi et la Solidarité sociale (MESS) that grew out of the merger in 1998 of various employment and labour force services. Under the Canada-Quebec Labour Market Agreement, which took effect in January 1998, Quebec assumed responsibility for active employment measures to be provided to employment insurance recipients as well as for certain functions of the National Placement Service, which may be accessed by users of employment insurance. These measures and functions are funded by the Employment Insurance Fund, for which the federal government is responsible. Footnote 14
The preferred approach here of coordination (in French, "concertation") among government, employers and unions is recent in the Quebec context because "in the early 1990s, besides the lack of employer investment in education and training, a low level of partnership was also observed" (Charest, 2007a, p. 233; transl.). Emploi-Québec partners with the Conseils régionaux, the Comités sectoriels and the Commission des Partenaires du Marché du Travail (CPMT); these institutions will be examined in the following sections. More specifically, Emploi-Québec administers the CLEs and manages the funds of the CPMT. Emploi-Québec accordingly plays an important role in work-related ALT in Quebec. And it is substantially involved with the Fonds national de développement des compétences de la main-d'oeuvre [Labour Force Skills Development fund], as well as with Bills 90 and 5.