This organization does not seem to be willing or able to help someone find meaningful, career-oriented, well-paying employment.

Is it my imagination (or paranoia) or does everything that HRDC does seem to have a taint about it?

[ 03 April 2003: Message edited by: Aviator ]

[ 03 April 2003: Message edited by: Aviator ]

The chopping started under the Mulroney Tories...but went into overdrive under the Chretien Liberals.

Nowadays they contract this work to various community agencies...and constantly squeeze them to "do more with less".

The Liberals disgraceful gutting of the unemployment insurance system is a big part of why I don't see Dalton McGuinty's Ontario Liberals as being any better than the Harris/Eves Tories.

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The only thing that's slightly different is the rhetoric. As Ed Broadbent used to say the Liberals campaign from the left and govern from the right.

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HA! Liberals don't govern from the right. If they did, maybe I would hate their party less.

No, HRDC is just another example of money-wasting and incompetence by the Liberal government.

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Nowadays they contract this work to various community agencies...and constantly squeeze them to "do more with less".

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You are SO right. I worked for one of those agencies in Toronto, providing HRDC services, and they squeezed every last nickel from everything we did. During that big HRDC scandal where they blew all that money and couldn't show anything for it, those of us in the agency I worked for were shaking our heads in amazement, because it's not like we ever saw any of it.

If they had put that money into the employment counselling and job finding programs that we were running on a shoestring, but that people actually found helpful (and yes, they DID find it VERY helpful, most of our clients loved the services we provided when they were actually able to access them), it would have been extremely helpful to a lot of people.

The EI programs that are out there are really great. I worked in them for a long time, and I've taken advantage of them when unemployed. But the problem is, they're so starved for resources that they just can't provide proper care for the number of clients they get. Employment Resource Centres (ERCs) only allow you an hour a day to use the computer, and only 10 printouts a day. One hour to compose and type up your resume, tailor-compose your cover-letters, and use the internet for job search. Anyone who has had to look for work recently (which I am right now) knows that you just can't get anything done in an hour - or at least, not nearly enough.

Luckily I have a computer, printer, and high speed internet at home. I easily spend four or five hours a day, searching job sites for likely positions, then writing individual cover letters (generic ones won't do if you want the job), and often tailoring my resume to whatever position is asked for. I have about 4 versions of my resume so far, and even they need to be "tweaked" for some of my job applications.

You can't do all of that in an hour a day. It has to be recognized that the way people search for work has changed, and much more computer time is needed. You don't just do a resume and run off 200 copies of it anymore. Hell, a lot of jobs you can only apply for online anyhow.

As for employment counselling - we had so few counsellors that at times we were booking a month or two in advance. And those counsellors were the ones who referred people to the EI services - they had to be assessed to see what they needed most. People who came to see the employment counsellors were often helped a great deal by them - at least, that's the feedback we got - but just getting in to SEE an employment counsellor took forever, and then getting into the next free spot in a program like a job finding club (which, btw, are excellent) took another while - and meanwhile, weeks to months are passing by, unemployed! And all because HRDC comes up with these pretty good programs, and then starves them so that it takes forever for people to access them.

Imagine being secure in knowing that your basic needs would be taken care of. Imagine this instead of dreading the day that your EI is going to end. People cheat the system not because they are criminals but because they need to survive.

[ 05 April 2003: Message edited by: Aviator ]

Back in the 1970's "Manpower" as it was called then was a fairly good service that did some good work. It was a government service that actually helped people find work and/or access training programmes to help them get back to work.

Nowadays the community agencies that are contracted to provide service to help the unemployed are starved for funds and totally understaffed. They're also burried in so much paperwork that half the time they're doing government paperwork instead of actually helping people.

On the other hand, you have the Liberals spending large sums of HRDC money for all kinds of corrupt patronage projects with little or no accounting at all.

And of course when the Liberals are caught red-handed playing patronage games the right-wingers scream across the floor of the House of Commons that the HRDC should be abolished.

Then the Liberals respond by loading even more paperwork onto the community agencies so that they can get even less done.

What the Liberals have done to the unemployed I will never forgive them for. Unfortunately the only part of Canada that has "punished" them for it is Atlantic Canada. That's a large part of the reason for the NDP breakthrough in Nova Scotia and particularly by Yvan Godin in New Brunswick.

Never get me started on this stuff...I go ballistic!

The public service commission website isn't bad though.

Many of those private sites are fronts for staffing companies, who charge 20% of the starting salary to the employer for placing the person. Care to guess the noise level if the gubment tried to do something similar? All our capitalist friends would cry "unfair."

In our town, we have a place called the Working Centre. People get help with searching for work, and learning useful skills. I've taught networking skills to folks who have gone there. I believe it's Mennonite money and government funds together in that project.

[ 07 April 2003: Message edited by: paxamillion ]