Press Release
The latest report to emerge from the Northern Projections Human Capital Series by Dr. Bahktiar Moazzami and James Cuddy offers several recommendations for Rainy River District, which already is experiencing major demographic and labour market shifts.
“This new report, a partnership between the Northern Ontario Workforce Planning Boards and Northern Policy Institute, certainly identifies several challenges in the Rainy River District,” said Charles Cirtwill, president and CEO of Northern Policy Institute.
“More importantly, however, by examining past and present characteristics and trends unique to the district’s economy, the community now is better equipped to identify and build upon opportunities that will work for the people of Rainy River [District],” he added.
The structure of the district’s workforce has been changing due to a population that’s simultaneously declining and aging.
The total population is expected to decline from 20,166 in 2013 to 17,362 in 2041.
The share of working-age people (ages 20-64), meanwhile, is projected to decline from 57.4 percent in 2013 to 45.5 percent in 2041.
The size and industrial makeup of the employed workforce also has changed over the past three decades, revealed by a continuous shift away from the goods-producing sector dominated by private businesses to the largely publicly-funded service-producing sector.
The report also found that the education and skill levels of the prime working-age population in Rainy River District are lagging behind the current estimated skill requirements.
To drill down even further, labour force participation rates among the indigenous population in Rainy River District generally were lower and unemployment rates higher than the rest of the population.
As such, one potential solution to the district’s declining workforce size and productivity is to promote higher education through increased access to services, especially for the indigenous population that is experiencing lower levels of education.
Furthermore, the report highlights the fact all of Rainy River District’s population live in rural areas as defined by Statistics Canada.
Only three percent live in areas with a moderate link to an urban centre while 86 percent live in areas with a weak link to an urban centre.
The other 11 percent live in remote regions.
Given the geography and distances involved, the report also proposes that economic investment and immigrant attraction efforts should continue to focus on industries that flourish in this environment: agriculture, forestry, and mining.
Based on these trends, the report offers three key recommendations to promote the long-term sustainability of the district:
1. Enhanced access to remote and on-the-job educational opportunities.
2. Continue to invest in the indigenous population (to the extent that desire to engage in the broader economy exists, continued investments in supporting that engagement through education and skills enhancement should be made).
3. Urban solutions will not work for Rainy River District.
Given the geography and distances involved, economic investment and immigrant attraction efforts should continue to focus on industries that flourish in this environment.
The full report, “Northern Projections: Human Capital Series-Rainy River District,” is available at www.northernpolicy.ca
