Northern Community Development Services are continuing to offer their services through online means until the state of emergency in Ontario is lifted. NCDS is a job service that helps job seekers identify their opportunities by writing effective resumes and preparing for interviews.
Nicke Paddock, executive director at NCDS, said all services are offered virtually so people are not coming in to the office. “There is no walk-in traffic, but we are not having as many students this year because of COVID,” Paddock said.
Services that are offered include the following: job search advice and career guidance, skill-building workshops, placement services for eligible clients, training incentives for those who hire eligible clients and specialized employment services for the unemployed and employed.
NCDS also offers a wide variety of workshops, most of which are free. Free workshops include career cruising, financial literacy, time management, goal setting, job search techniques, employer expectations and skilled trades and apprenticeship information basics.
“We can run a workshop that is one-on-one,” Paddock said. “You just have to call and we’ll figure a way to run a workshop with you. But some of our workshops like first aid holds eight people, first come, first serve. If you have eight people who want to, we will run separate workshops for that. We try to accommodate any situation for sure.”
NCDS is divided into three streams: employers, job seekers and workshops. NCDS is usually a place where jobs get posted so students and others looking for employment can look for work. Just like any other business, COVID-19 changed the caliber of the jobs usually offered in the summer.
“Business that were hiring at the beginning of COVID were definitely the larger retail businesses that stayed open like Walmart, Safeway, McDonald’s,” Paddock said. “Those types of businesses that were still open and needs a lot of people to be able to stay on top of the cleaning process. We saw a flux of that, but now we are seeing a slower labour market where people are not looking for jobs as much as they were before.”
Right now, as COVID-19 restrictions are lifting up, Paddock said sectors such as healthcare and the Gold Mine are hiring more people.
“We are seeing cleaning companies needing more people,” Paddock said. “We have a whole list of every job that is available in the area.”
Paddock said given COVID-19 also contributed to many employees getting laid off, this would be a good time to consider whether you qualify for a second career. Second career is a stream that offers continued schooling in a college or a university to obtain new skills needed for jobs in current demand.
In preparing to apply, you have to demonstrate the following: places you have applied and the positions you have applied for, the level of education reached, what skills you are looking to get and where you can get trained for them, information on the skills and the job you want is in demand, how long you have been unemployed, or working your temporary job and where you worked before, for how long and the skills needed for this job.
Individuals can apply for funding up to $28,000 including tuition, books, transportation, childcare, manuals, workbooks or other instruction costs and basic allowance of $410 per week.
This service is part of the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development, and is partially funded by the government of Canada and the government of Ontario. Paddock said since COVID-19 took its course, the ministry has not reduced any of their funding. “We are continuing to get the same funding, which is great,” Paddock added.
Paddock said the numbers for both the registering for workshops and students coming forward to use the services are way lower than the usual.
“We have not been able to run first aid courses and that is a very popular workshop that we run and is always sold out,” Paddock said. “But we are working on it right now with the less restriction coming into place that we can start running first aid again with smaller class size numbers.”
Numerically speaking, from January to June 2019, 291 students were assisted. While from January to June 2020, 218 students were assisted, a 25 per cent decrease from the previous year. Paddock said NCDS averaged the data from the previous three years and about 720 students were assisted per fiscal year from January to December.
To put workshop numbers in perspective, there were 97 workshops that were offered from March to June 2019. On the other hand, only 15 workshops were given from March to June 2020, accounting for a sharp 85 per cent decrease in registration from 2019.
Although, Paddock said the ministry has not given them the green light to go back and work from office, a plan to come back is in the works.
“We have a COVID-19 safety plan committee that we internally work together with to put together our plan to come back to work and we are just waiting for the state of emergency to be over. We are getting direction from our ministry not to open until then. They still want people to work virtually.”
According to NCDS’s mission statement, they believe people are unique and deserve a quality lifestyle.
“Our goal is to equip individuals to improve the quality of their lives by fostering intellectual and social growth that will enrich the communities of the Rainy River District,” the statement says. “NCDS will promote, develop, implement and administer community programs for youth and adults. The delivery of service is designed to provide education, skills upgrading, employment counselling, job search training and lifestyle management.”
