{"id":47883,"date":"2017-11-15T16:30:03","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T21:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=47883"},"modified":"2018-03-16T10:28:33","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T14:28:33","slug":"niagara-has-highly-skilled-youth-low-skilled-jobs-says-brock-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/11\/niagara-has-highly-skilled-youth-low-skilled-jobs-says-brock-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Niagara has highly skilled youth, low-skilled jobs, says Brock research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is a serious mismatch between youth education levels and employment opportunities in Niagara, says new Brock University research.<\/p>\n<p>The Niagara region houses both a comprehensive university and a community college that produce highly educated young people, notes a policy brief produced by the Niagara Community Observatory (NCO) and released Wednesday, Nov. 15.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the vast majority of Niagara jobs are in the low-skilled accommodation, food services and retail trade sectors, says the brief, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/niagara-community-observatory\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/117\/Youth-Employment-Policy-Brief-28-FINAL-WEB-VERSION-Oct-2017.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Youth Employment in Niagara: Mapping the Opportunities<\/a>.\u201d The brief examines the opportunities for those between the ages of 15 and 29.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have is a situation where the skills that we generate often times don\u2019t get used or leveraged,\u201d says NCO director Charles Conteh. \u201cThis brief is a first step that gives us a map of that mismatch in youth employment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Top 3 categories in which Niagara\u2019s youth earn credentials are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>health and related fields<\/li>\n<li>business, management and public administration<\/li>\n<li>architecture, engineering and related technologies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yet, the Top 3 employers are in the sectors of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>accommodation and food services<\/li>\n<li>retail trade<\/li>\n<li>administrative, waste management and remediation<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The brief notes that 39.7 per cent of youth \u2014 or two out of every five between the ages of 20 and 24 \u2014 work in the hotel, food and retail industries.<\/p>\n<p>Conteh notes that, although Niagara youth employment numbers are higher than other areas, the numbers don\u2019t necessarily indicate that youth are doing well in the region, given where many of them are employed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose are very precarious sectors, with many part-time jobs, shift work and low wages,\u201d says Conteh. \u201cWe have a region that may have relatively decent employment numbers, but high rates of poverty and gross inequality. Much of that is explained by the mismatch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Many youth end up leaving Niagara, he says. \u201cWe\u2019re pumping out talent for other regions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The brief also contains maps of where different types of jobs are located across the region, based on bi-national research the NCO conducted with the University at Buffalo.<\/p>\n<p>The NCO partnered with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.niagaraconnects.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Niagara Connects<\/a> to launch the brief Wednesday through a webinar, the first time that the Brock research group has done so.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow we have this platform that enables many individuals to participate in the comfort of the office, home or anywhere and be part of this very important conversation,\u201d says Conteh.<\/p>\n<p>He says the next step will be to fully analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the Niagara labour market using the most recent 2016 Census data, and to discuss with policy makers, governments, business, community leaders and others on what measures could be created to retain youth and provide jobs that match their skills levels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a serious mismatch between youth education levels and employment opportunities in Niagara, says new Brock University research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":47884,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3319,1,5,38],"tags":[3095,63,3411],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47883"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47883"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49941,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47883\/revisions\/49941"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}