By Marcina Bismilla
A labour shortage in Ottawa’s tourism industry may benefit from a new talent pool to counter the city’s worker shortage.
The Ottawa Partnership business alliance (TOP), with the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI), have established the TalentWorks program.
The service will link schools, local government and hundreds of employers to attract people to Ottawa and promote new development.
Leslie Miller, president of the Ottawa Tourism and Convention Authority, says he’s excited about TalentWorks.
“We’d love to have a pool of talent and at the moment they (tourism companies) don’t have that. It will certainly help our seasonal operators, as well as our year-round operators,” says Miller.
He says it’s difficult training people because tourism companies often hire people for sesonal jobs.
Sheryl Gorman, director at OCRI, is in charge of the TalentWorks program.
“We don’t have a good snapshot of all the activity in the Ottawa area,” says Gorman. “We want a big picture of what’s out there.”
Last year, TOP and the old regional government released a study that identified seven industries in need of more workers: medical services, telecommunications, photonics, mircoelectronics, software, professional services, and tourism.
According to Statistics Canada, Ottawa-Hull had an unemployment rate of 5 per cent in January 2001, compared with the national unemployment rate of 6.9 per cent.
“When the unemployment rate is as low as ours, everyone has trouble getting staff. It’s not a problem in the tourism industry, it’s a problem for all industries,” says Miller.
The number of students applying to work at the Capital Infocentre has “actually been decreasing in the last year or two,” says Infocentre spokesperson Natalie Wright.
The Infocentre, run by the National Capital Commission hires students each summer to work at its call centre and as guides on Parliament Hill. According to Parliament’s Web site, an estimated one million people visited Parliament Hill in 1997-98.
In order to target more students for summer jobs, the Capital Infocentre advertises all of its positions on the same poster, says Wright.
“The challenge is to reach students with the right profile for our program,” she says. Wright was unaware of the TalentWorks program.
OCRI plans to hold a conference in June for input on TalentWorks.
“Ottawa has a net brain gain as opposed to a brain drain, but we have to get the people we need in order to grow,” says Gorman.
The program is slated to start after the conference.