The inability to successfully attach Aboriginal job seekers to the labour market in rural and northern Manitoba is heading towards crisis proportion. Some of the multiple barriers that Aboriginal job seekers face include: low level basic skills, no workplace experience, and few resources available. Mendelson (2004) told us that “relative rates of unemployment remain highest in Manitoba and Saskatchewan”
(p. 27). Mendelson further stated, “On almost every indicator, the labour market status of the Aboriginal identity population in Manitoba and Saskatchewan is among the worst in Canada”
(p. 40). McGovern and Jones (2004) presented a good definition of barriers to employment: “Barriers to employment come in many different guises. They vary considerably from respondent to respondent, and encompass everything from personal characteristics to rigidities in the labour market itself”
(p. v). McGovern and Jones, when discussing research regarding barriers to employment for Aboriginal job seekers, stated, “Low literacy and education was shown to be particularly problematic among Aboriginal respondents”
(p. v).
Quality of education on reserves in rural and northern Manitoba is insufficient. Mendelson (2004) supported this in the statement, “Whereas fewer than one-third of all Canadians have less than high school graduation, almost one-half of the Aboriginal identity population did not graduate from high school”
(p. 15). Hull (2000) indicated, “There may be weaknesses in Aboriginal students’ basic education … which leads to limit their success in postsecondary
programs”
(p. 109).
Overall, in rural and northern Manitoba and across Canada, wherever there are First Nations, Aboriginals, Inuit, and Métis, there is a lack of ownership and responsibility for literacy and employment readiness. Kelly Lendsay (2006), President and CEO of the Aboriginal Human Resource Development Council of Canada, stated in their most recent newsletter that, “Canada is experiencing an Aboriginal baby boom.… Aboriginal people are the nation’s youngest and fastest growing human resource”
(p. 1). Mendelson (2004) substantiated the importance of labour market attachment: “As we have seen, the Aboriginal work-force will become increasingly important over the next decade and a half. This is especially so in the Prairie provinces”
(p. 38).