Governments Announce Project to Help Older Workers in Nova Scotia
EDUCATION--Governments Announce Project to Help Older Workers in Nova Scotia
A new pilot project will look at ways to retain older workers in the health-care sector in Nova Scotia.
Education Minister Jane Purves and Robert Thibault, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on behalf of Jane Stewart, Minister of Human Resources Development Canada, announced the pilot project today, Oct. 8. The project will help long-term-care facilities in Nova Scotia find ways of meeting health-care sector needs with older workers.
The project will be run by the Health Care Human Resource Sector Council, the Nova Scotia Centre on Aging and the Centre for Women in Business, and will receive federal funding of $82,500.
"Experienced workers can make a big difference in industries that are having trouble finding and retaining qualified people," said Ms. Purves. "We're taking a comprehensive look at addressing skills shortages in the work force with our Skills Nova Scotia initiative. This pilot will help to address a need in the long- term care industry and give us useful insights that we can apply elsewhere."
The goal of this pilot project, titled Human Resource Planning in Facility-Based Care, is to develop a tool kit that will support long-term-care facilities throughout the province in human resource planning. This includes training and different ways of organizing work responsibilities for employees over the age of 55.
"The support for this project is a tangible example of the government of Canada's commitment to help organizations that wish to help older workers," said Mr. Thibault. "This initiative will determine best practices in helping older workers and measure the effectiveness of the tools developed."
The planning package was developed by the health-care sector to improve planning and to help close the skills gap in the long- term-care industry. Activities will include conducting an industry roundtable discussion, identifying participating facilities in the region and developing and delivering training materials for employers and workers.
Funding for older workers pilot projects comes from a $30-million initiative announced in June 1999. Under the Nova Scotia Agreement on Older Workers, the federal government will pay up to $831,883 and the province up to $372,400, for a total of $1,204,283. This is the third project funded under the agreement.
Through the Forum of Labour Market Ministers, the government of Canada and the provincial and territorial governments have committed to work together to resolve common labour-market issues. Together, they set the parameters for this older workers initiative. The provincial and territorial governments oversee the sponsors of the projects selected. Funding for the projects is provided by the federal government, the provinces and participating territories.