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By: Tamara Papo
Published On: August 19, 2014Tamara Papo is our Career Servic
es Coordinator. Originally from Yugoslavia, she moved to Canada in 1993. She has a B.A. in Psychology and completed a post graduate certificate in Employment Facilitation Work Search Specialist from Yorkville University in August 2013.
Tamara has been working at Ashton since 2011 and has helped countless Ashton students find placements and careers in Vancouver.
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I attended the Summer Labour market Conference: Skills Challenge 2020 on July 31st and August 1st, 2014 at the Fairmont Hotel in Vancouver. The conference was presented by the BC Labor Market Report. There were more than 150 attendees representing job developers, employment counselors, and career practitioners from Government, nonprofit agencies and Post-secondary institutions. The speakers included Executive director of Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation, Assistant Deputy Minister of ministry of jobs tourism and skills training, Directors of local Nonprofit organizations and presidents of Post-secondary institutions. The conference was a great opportunity for me to network and make new connections with other practitioners in the industry and to learn about labor market trends and challenges and barriers that job seekers are facing today in our province and across Canada.
Assistant Deputy Minister Mr. Scott Macdonald from the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Labour talked about the blueprint for BC up to 2020.
There is good news for current students and recent graduates as by 2016 number of people who are close to retirement (ages 55-65) will surpass those aged 20-29. This is the first time ever more people will be leaving workforce then entering. There is a projection of 1 million jobs by 2022. 530,000 young people will enter the job market and more than 78% of jobs will require post-secondary education.
My advice to current students and recent graduates who are looking for jobs is to focus on job readiness skills, especially communication and interpersonal skills and to work on expending their networks by attending lectures, seminars, workshops or webinars related to their field of study.
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