Canada must prepare for the growing need to retrain workers displaced by disruptive technologies. To do so, governments must have a thorough sense of the effectiveness of current employment retraining programs.
High-quality evaluations of employment training programs will help policy-makers identify the best models to prepare workers for the future — and also help them avoid deepening inequality.
But right now in Canada, there is no central body that evaluates a vast array of employment training programs across the country. Instead, as a study we conducted revealed, responsibility for many programs is divided across government levels, and these programs are under-researched. A lack of co-ordination and data sharing to bolster policy research and development will become a major problem unless the federal government takes a stronger leadership role.
The federal government says it has the vision and political appetite to improve Canada’s training infrastructure. Such an effort needs to be backed by investment in evaluating training programs organized and delivered by all levels of government in Canada.
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Designing Effective Policy Responses