• Co-workers are often given the responsibility of passing on information informally about safe food handling. It is possible that these 'buddy trainers' may have their own hidden difficulties with essential and language skills. They teach according to their own essential skill level.

• Frequently workers who have not completed their education or who completed it several years ago do not recognize any shortfall in their literacy skills. Their jobs, for the most part, require very little reading and writing. The documents they deal with are usually standard forms which they are trained to use such as the 'squirrel sheet'. They do not see any need to improve their essential skills. The Conference Board of Canada (1999) confirms this in their research:

"The reality is that most workers with inadequate skills are unaware of it. One reason for the disconnect is that many workers are in jobs that have not required them to use these skills. But this situation is changing. The number of available low-skill jobs is decreasing as the economy becomes more 'knowledge and information intense'. At the same time, the demand for 'enabling' skills—skills that foster new ways of doing things and the ability to adapt to an ever-changing workplace—is increasing."

• Managers in ethnic restaurants, while they recognize that many of those who work in the kitchen do no speak English well, do not see language limitations as an issue because they deliver food safety training in the first language.

Issues Do Exist

Although managers, supervisors and workers did not see any issues with essential skills related to training, those issues do exist. Trainers who deliver more formal training recognize essential skills problems. They make accommodations to low literacy and language skills on a recurring basis. The most frequent adaptation is using oral communication with accompanying pictures, charts and videos in lecture delivery to convey content to learners. These supports have the potential to increase as the profile of people in the workforce changes. They use strategies such as translating materials, hiring staff who speak the same first language or re-writing material to a lower level. These are temporary solutions at best.

Limited language and literacy skills become a barrier and a more urgent concern to achieving success in certification testing. Second language learners, without accommodations, often have difficulty in training and certification exams. Modifications such as instruction in the first language, translation of material, use of personal translation dictionaries, and oral delivery, result in reducing observable problems in food safety training.

Essential skills related to food safety training and the certification exam seem not to be a concern at this stage, particularly in a work environment that is not 'literacy' rich. This attitude will likely alter with the changing demographics and the projected need to dig deeper into the labour pool. The strategic planning study, which led to this research project, points out that the future employee market is shrinking and that service industries will experience more difficulty in finding workers. Already, in one northern Alberta community, restaurants have had to limit their hours of operation because they do not have enough employees. One manager who was interviewed indicated that he is beginning to experience challenges in hiring. Until recently he never had to recruit; applicants came to him looking for work. This past year he had to advertise to fill jobs.