The Workplace Partners Panel (WPP) is a national initiative created by the Canadian Labour and Business Centre, with support from the federal government, specifically to bring business and labour leaders together to examine different labour market challenges facing Canada. While these are pan-Canadian challenges, the WPP recognizes that long-term solutions must reflect local and regional realities. This is why the WPP's first major initiative was designed to draw out provincial/regional "Best Thinking" on the critical issue of skills needs in the context of an aging workforce, and involved the creation of regional task forces.
The WPP Atlantic Provinces Task Force (APTF) is comprised of senior labour and business leaders from each province in the region. Given that the issue of skills needs in the context of an aging workforce is so broad and complex, the APTF's exploration involved a review of multiple inputs (provincial deliberative dialogues, online consultation, research report, surveys) and focused on three priority topics:
This report synthesizes the key findings from the Prince Edward Island deliberative dialogue, which was held in Charlottetown, on April 27, 2006. This report is one of the inputs that the APTF Prince Edward Island representatives used to develop their thinking on approaches to address the over-arching challenge of skills needs in the context of an aging workforce.
Please note that all content provided in this report reflects what participants said during the dialogue. As such, the report does not represent the views of the Canadian Labour and Business Centre, the Atlantic Provinces Task Force or the Workplace Partners Panel and its staff. In addition, facts and figures presented by participants and included in the report have not been verified for accuracy.
Youth: Participants in the PEI dialogue discussed some of the barriers faced by young people as they try to enter the labour market. They suggested that youth lack a supportive infrastructure to make the right career development decisions and would benefit from access to accurate (and usable) labour market information, better-trained guidance counsellors, and helpful role models. Participants were also concerned about high levels of out-migration, and the loss of highly educated young people, to other provinces. In response, it was suggested that PEI learn from its successes in developing attractive, knowledge-based jobs.