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Ontario's High-Tech
Labor Pool

One growing trend in Ontario is the increase in university-business allian-ces, and the proliferation of highly specialized training programs designed to meet the needs of a changing marketplace. Information technology, aviation, tool & dye and automotive manufacturing, and call centers are among the industries benefiting from these alliances.

Magna International, an auto-parts manufacturer, opened a C$10 million, 72,000-sq.-ft. (6,700-sq.-m.) training center in Brampton for millwrights, mould-makers and industrial electromechanics (paid apprentices). The inaugural class graduates in 2002. Fanshawe College, in London, is getting C$2 million from the Government to expand its auto-training programs. Bill Murnighan, National representative for the Canadian AutoWorkers Union, says the CAW has been lobbying companies and governments for such programs to better sustain an available work force.

The MEDT reports that in 1998, Ontario's labor pool consisted of 6,050,000 people with 60 percent having attended university or college; 30 percent have earned certificates from colleges of applied arts and technology. According to the 1999 World Competitiveness Yearbook, business leaders rank Canada's education system over those of Japan and the U.S. when it comes to meeting the needs of a competitive economy.

And there is little doubt that with its celebration of multi-culturalism, the province offers linguistic and ethnic diversity for global customers. In July 2000, Ontario's unemployment rate fell to 5.3 percent, which is the lowest since April 1990. And the MEDT reports that a record 198,000 jobs were created in 1999, and 177,000 in '98. "These are the best two consecutive years of job-creation in Ontario's history," Mitsopulos reports.