What this initiative offers

Mass layoffs can have a severe impact on communities and have devastating effects that go beyond job losses, affecting workers, families and the economy. The Canada Retraining and Opportunities Initiative helps build community resilience by providing additional support to existing programs and services (for example Employment Insurance, training and re-employment transition supports) in communities that have been significantly impacted by a mass layoff.

The Canada Retraining and Opportunities Initiative provides funding for community-driven projects that support workforce planning and skills training in communities where it is exceptionally difficult for affected workers to transition to other jobs.

Objectives

• Bring together community-based organizations (for example, employers, training providers and others) to develop a community workforce plan. The workforce plan will identify impacted workers, local employers looking to hire, and the skills required to meet demand
• Help workers develop the skills needed to transition to new jobs through training and work experiences, and
• Support employers to fill jobs in demand

Glossary

Community workforce plan:

A community-level plan provides information on the available workforce within the community. It also provides information to inform future demand for workers and skills; and activities that are needed to develop the workforce to meet demand. Activities can include supply/demand forecasting, skills assessment, gap analysis, capacity planning, scenario modeling, performance analytics, etc.

Mass Layoff:

A mass layoff is defined as the permanent layoff of 50 or more employees in one establishment, in one community over a 4 week period.

North American Industry Classification System (NAICS):

An industry classification system developed by the statistical agencies of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. It is designed to provide common definitions of the industrial structure of the three countries and a common statistical framework to facilitate the analysis of the three economies. The structure of NAICS is hierarchical. For the purposes of this funding, the Department will use the three-digit NAICS code (identifying the subsector) to determine eligibility.