Canada’s job training approach failing mid-career workers, Blueprint CEO warns
Canada's employment and training systems were not built for the moment the country now finds itself in — one where mid-career workers, not just new entrants to the labour market, urgently need ways to adapt or risk being left behind in an era of profound labour market change, says Karen Myers, President and CEO of Blueprint.
"There are a wide range of forces that are reshaping industries, occupations, regional economies, and this is creating a lot of uncertainty for workers, for businesses, for communities, and it's across the country," Myers said.
"Our employment and training systems are not designed for this; they're designed to support workers who are struggling to get a foothold in the labour market. They're not designed for mid-career workers who need to upskill or reskill, to respond to labour market change. As a result, we have a gap."
This is important to address because mid-career workers have not had to upskill or retrain at the pace needed to adapt to the new economic realities. "Mid-career workers cannot simply drop everything and retrain. They have families to support, and the answer isn't going back to college for a year or two. We need rapid reskilling that is recognized by employers, and either helps people upskill to stay in their current job, or with their existing employer, or will lead to a new job. We need to do this as proactively as possible before people become unemployed and fall into crisis," she said.
This requires a new purpose-built approach that brings together all stakeholders.
"This is a challenge that cannot be solved by government alone. Businesses need to be at the table, and we're not going to get there with one-off projects. We need upskilling and reskilling infrastructure."
What that "systems-level, multi-actor, multi-stakeholder collaboration could look like" is the subject of a new report from Blueprint titled Supporting Mid-Career Transitions: An Emerging Playbook. It notes that workforce disruption is accelerating, yet the support workers need for successful transitions often becomes available only after they experience job loss. As a result, mid-career workers face significant barriers to reskilling and re-employment.
"Mid-career workers cannot simply drop everything and retrain. They have families to support, and the answer isn't going back to college for a year or two. We need rapid reskilling that is recognized by employers, and either helps people upskill to stay in their current job, or with their existing employer, or will lead to a new job.”
Karen Myers, President and CEO, Blueprint
The playbook brings together insights from research, system experience and real-world experimentation into a practical, evidence-informed framework to help mid-career workers navigate disruption.
It explains how systems can better prepare for change, coordinate service pathways, and support workers as they move into new roles. Rather than prescribing a single solution, it compiles lessons learned from across projects to define the core building blocks for more proactive, coordinated responses in a rapidly changing labour market.
Myers pointed to a Statistics Canada study examining the aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crisis. She said StatsCan looked at a group of people who lost their jobs but didn't find employment in the first couple of months of the recession. "Eight out of 10 workers didn't take any of the adjustment strategies. So eight out of 10 workers didn't move to a new place where there was a job, they didn't enroll in post-secondary, they didn't do an apprenticeship, and they didn't start a business,” she said. “We're in this era of profound change, which is only going to get more intensified as AI continues to take a foothold in the labour market. We don't want workers on the sidelines and we can't afford that, as a country. Our prosperity is at stake."
The risk isn't only that workers get stuck — it's also that businesses won't find the people needed to meet Canada’s housing and infrastructure targets. "Our federal government has goals and ambition to do things at a speed and scale that we haven't seen in generations, and that is going to require a workforce," Myers said. Without coordinated planning, she warned, the country risks “a scenario where there's growth in some areas of the labour market, and we don't have the talent or the workforce that we need."
The playbook identifies artificial intelligence as a key driver of labour market instability.
"The growth in AI capabilities is exponential," Myers said. "What was an idea a couple of years ago is now a reality."
She pointed to fields from software development to health care as opportunities where AI could help productivity. At the same time, she said, entry level jobs can easily be done by AI, which means workers must develop soft skills like emotional and critical thinking.
"Judgment becomes a hot commodity as a skill," she said, "and those skills are harder to train than the technical skills are."
“We're in this era of profound change, which is only going to get more intensified as AI continues to take a foothold in the labour market. We don't want workers on the sidelines and we can't afford that, as a country. Our prosperity is at stake."
Karen Myers, President and CEO, Blueprint
When it comes to training, however, projects funded through government contribution agreements don't cut it for the times we're in, Myers said.
Too often, she said, promising programs are shut down just as they're hitting their stride. "We have seen too many government investments in training projects that run for two years," she said. "It's very hard to go from zero to delivering something that's high-quality that's going to meet the need."
She pointed to training infrastructure models like Ireland's sector-based "skills nets," which pool the needs of multiple small and medium-sized businesses to create training at scale as one example of how to better produce meaningful results. Canada's recently launched workforce alliances, she said, are an attempt to do something similar. She also argued that funding models need to change so that businesses and individuals share more of the cost. "Everyone needs to have some skin in the game," Myers said. "Government can play a very important role in seed money. Government can play a role if there's a gap between what people can pay, but they can't be the only funder. I think that's something that needs to change."
Myers also pointed to Indigenous-led training initiatives like the Indigenous Skills and Employment Training program, as another example sectors could learn from. "There is a deeper connection between supply and demand, more coordination, more collaboration," she said. "There's a lot that is already working that we can build on, and we're seeing just remarkable sophistication in terms of Indigenous-led, Indigenous ownership of training initiatives."
Myers founded Blueprint, a Coalition for a Better Future member, to develop better policies, programs and services through data and evidence-based decision making. The ultimate goal, she said, is to improve outcomes to make life better for Canadians, which aligns with the Coalition's mission to grow the economy inclusively and sustainably.
"What can we do together that we couldn't do alone, and how do we ensure that there's visibility on these questions. We can think about how to move beyond election cycles," she said, when asked why it was important for Blueprint to be a Coalition member. "The way the Coalition thinks about all of this is very aligned with Blueprint's thinking."
Despite the scale of the challenge, Myers said the playbook has found a receptive audience in government. She presented the findings to deputy ministers from every province and territory at a meeting of the Forum of Labour Market Ministers in April. "There was a lot of interest and recognition that we need to really be thinking about how we take our existing employment and training systems ... to ensure that we're creating pathways for mid-career workers," she said.
“In our report, we talk about some of the infrastructure that is needed for a modern 21st-century training system. We need planning tables, we need ways that businesses can come to the table and articulate their needs, and we need some certainty in the market so we can start designing high-quality training. Filling out a lot of forms to get a grant ... is bureaucratic, it's inefficient. We've got to make it easier for people to participate."
