Mark Bennett, together with other members of the City of Toronto’s Economic and Culture Recovery Advisory Group, has written an opinion piece for the Toronto Star highlighting recommendations from their report for long-term strategies to build back stronger from the pandemic.
Write members of the Advisory Group:
Seismic shifts in the workplace make it imperative for the City of Toronto to develop a comprehensive, proactive workforce-development strategy that ensures our talent pool remains among the most resilient and competitive in the world. Our challenge is to adopt forward-looking strategies to help ensure that the city’s highly skilled workforce is aligned with the emerging demand for specialized, well-trained skilled labour.
The authors go on to outline three recommendations from their report that deal specifically with talent and workforce issues, including: creating a strategic approach to workforce development, championing support for workers as a foundation of economic recovery, and establishing a Youth Economic Recovery Table.
They conclude:
We believe that by implementing workforce strategies that support the city government’s pledge to promote diversity and share prosperity, we will emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with a stronger economy, greater cultural dynamism and a more promising future.
The Advisory Group, consisting of 18 members representing a broad range of city life, was established in June 2020 to provide objective advice to help establish how Toronto can best support businesses and culture organizations as they recover from the pandemic.