Is Windsor losing employable people?

by Dan Gray

The City of Windsor is losing employable people to other parts of the world, according to a report by Workforce Windsor Essex.

The local labour market report shows that between 2005 and 2010 over 9,000 people left Windsor-Essex. Of those, 89 per cent were between the ages of 18 and 44. According to the document, Windsor-Essex has faced significant economic challenges that have resulted in a dramatic impact on the ability to find work.

Tanya Antoniw, the executive director of Workforce Windsor Essex, said their statistics show two different stories –  people are leaving and the amount of people leaving is diminishing. She said she knows of situations where some people leave Windsor after university and come back after gaining some life experience to settle down. People leave here for jobs in the Greater Toronto Area and Alberta according to Antoniw.

Brandon Proce is the communications director for the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta. He provided me a census conducted by the region which includes Fort McMurray in 2012. That region which includes Fort McMurray, shows about 5.4 per cent of their population came from somewhere else in Canada. Out of that 5.4 percent more than one quarter were from Ontario.

“I was $50,000 in debt when I left,” said Jason Sauchuk a heavy equipment operator for Suncor in Fort McMurray. “My cousin got me the interview for Suncor and I couldn’t leave fast enough. I love the job, good money, great shifts.”
Sauchuk said every time he comes back to Ontario his family expects to be the “big spender” because he makes lots of money. However, he said, that the cost of living is high and even though he makes a lot, in 5 years of being in Fort McMurray he isn’t completely out of debt. He said he just started his own small business out there he probably won’t come back to Ontario permanently.

Antoniw said she believes it is their job at Workforce Windsor-Essex to communicate different opportunities to people. She does this by going to high schools and doing presentations telling the students about what is available here. According to Antoniw some of what students don’t know is that our technology sector is developing here in Windsor and that we make some of the world class leading apps. Antoniw said communicating to the public the fact they don’t have to go to other parts of the world to get certain experiences is one of the ways they have reduced the trend of people leaving.

According to Workforce Windsor-Essex, although Windosr-Essex is still losing people that could work here, by Informing people of our diversifying economy the trend is reversing.