"With over 25,000 people unable to find jobs for which they are suited, the need for skills training could not be more clear," NDP employment critic Cam Broten said. "The Sask. Party not only scrapped important job training programs in previous budgets, but their most recent budget failed to provide sufficient funding to expand training capacity."
A report released earlier this week by the Saskatchewan Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council noted that our skills shortage will soon be a skills crisis and it called on the Sask. Party government to make trades training a priority. The Saskatchewan Construction Association also expressed "disappointment" and said they "still want to see greater investment in apprenticeship training." (Journal of Commerce, 3/28/2012)
"The problem is that the Sask. Party government ignores the negative statistics and focuses solely on those it likes," Broten said. "It's great that we have added jobs over the last year, we welcome that, but it's shortsighted to write-off the 25,300 unemployed people and to ignore those who are raising important concerns about the lack of much needed skills training in our province."
The sectors that experienced job loss over the past year included: agriculture (-3,200 jobs); finance, insurance, real estate and leasing (-1,400 jobs); trade (-900 jobs); transportation and warehousing (-900 jobs); and manufacturing (-400 jobs). The number of self-employed people dropped by 3,800.
The regions with significant net job loss over the past year were: Yorkton-Melville (-600 jobs) and Swift Current-Moose Jaw (-500 jobs).
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