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reinvention?
By Tina Barton the Value of commodities and and social media to name a few, he says.
international trade is fallinG, But people shouldn’t wait on these and
markets are in turmoil, and newspapers other industries to grow by themselves. “It’s
are churning out daily tales of gloom and not just one-sided. We should create the
doom. But until the recession catches up skills they need to grow,” adds Mr. Rahbar.
with you, it’s easy to turn the other cheek. The market for reskilling and career
Until, that is, you hear that dreaded transition has grown more than 60 per cent in
rumour or official announcement that the last few months, Mr. Rahbar says, adding
layoffs at work are pending. Will you be people need to actively take responsibility for
caught on the back foot? How up-to-date keeping their skills updated and learning new
are your skills? areas of specialty – particularly as employers
It may come as a surprise, but if your last demand more knowledge and competencies
degree or program of study has from employees.
reached its fifth anniversary, it’s If your last “Employers expect,
already out of date, according for example, mechanical
to industry professionals. And degree or engineers to be designers
that lifespan falls to as short program of study too. To be familiar with the
as one and a half years in the end-to-end process, not
technology sector, says Hamid has reached its just one area.”
Rahbar, president and chairman fifth anniversary, But it’s not enough
of Vitesse Re-Skilling Canada for employees simply
and president of the Ottawa it’s already to update their skills on
Talent Initiative.
“At the end of that (period),
out of date. their own. Some think
employers should support
it means reskilling. If you don’t reskilling and up-skilling
reskill, you’ll be out of the workforce,” he initiatives, as well. But thanks to the recent
says. shorter job life cycle, many say employers no
Unlike “up-skilling,” which typically refers longer invest in their workers to the extent
to the process of updating and expanding they once did.
existing skills, “reskilling” involves learning “If companies will not invest in up-skilling
within a completely new area. or re-skilling, they will suffer … this will result
“People need to reconsider their careers in losing our technological and economic
and skills development and accept the fact competency and consequently (cause) job
that in the new economy, people need to losses from one side and business decline
experience different career paths during from the other side,” says Mr. Rahbar.
their career life,” Mr. Rahbar advises. Travis Lindgren, president and general
While not everyone needs to make manager of Learning Tree International
a dramatic career change to find a job, Canada, agrees. “For the relationship
the concept of re-skilling becomes more between employers and employees to
important during hard economic times improve, employers must invest a longer
when there’s a mismatch between supply time in people and people must commit
and demand. to a longer time in the company,” he says,
“We need to take care of this oversupply, adding research in the U.K. has shown firms
(and) what we can do (about that) is see that don’t make meaningful investments
which other sides of the economy are in training are two-and-a-half times more
growing.” likely to fail than those who do.
Some industries are expanding rapidly, The problem is that the recession has
despite the downturn: clean technology, caused, in many cases, knee-jerk penny-
biotechnology, nanotechnology, mobile pinching measures.
technology, video gaming, social networking “Specifically, companies are more