Training the Excluded for Work: Access and Equity for Women, Immigrants, First Nations, Youth, and People with Low Incomes

In recent years job training programs have suffered severe funding cuts, and the focus of training programs has shifted to meet the directives of funders rather than the needs of the community. How do these changes to job training affect disadvantaged workers and the unemployed? This insightful and comprehensive discussion of job education in Canada pools findings from a five-year collaborative study of training programs. Good training programs, argue Cohen and her contributors, are essential for providing chronically disadvantaged people with the tools needed to acquire more secure, better-paying jobs. In the ongoing shift toward a neo-liberal economic model, government policies have engendered a growing reliance on private and market-based training schemes. These new training policies have undermined equity. In an attempt to redress social inequities in the workplace, the authors examine various kinds of training programs and recommend specific policy initiatives to improve access to these programs. This book will be of interest to policymakers, academics, and students interested in policy, work, equity, gender, and education.