APPENDIX B. b

SUMMARY OF THE NATIONAL TRAINING PROGRAM

A Background Paper prepared for the C.C.L.O.W. by Heather Henderson

The new National Training Program seems rather narrowly focused on the industrial trades and skills, concentrated on the expectation of national resource development projects without showing any recognition of the "boom and bust" nature of such resource exploitation.

The federal government does not acknowledge the possibility of aggregate job loss over the next decade due to technological change, nor does it appear willing to study or prepare for radical changes in the workplace or the nature of work that such technological change may bring. The approach of the new program seems to be very employer-oriented: it is designed to provide trained workers to meet the employment needs of industry - instead of addressing the employment/unemployment problems of the 1980s it addresses the problems of industrial employers and attempts to meet their skill requirements.

The program is directed largely at skill shortages in those industrial occupations where women have traditionally had least access. At the same time, women are expected to comprise the greatest number of new entrants to the labor force in the 1980s. Under these circumstances,

The National Training Program will have little effect on the employment status of women and other disadvantaged minorities without a strong affirmative action plan which includes a legislated commitment to defined goals and a provision for enforcement of contract compliance with affirmative action goals.