Employability! Let’s try to analyze this term which is unknown to a great number of people. “Employability is having a set of skills, knowledge, understanding, and personal attributes that make a person more likely to choose and secure occupations in which one can be satisfied and successful”. (Dacre Pool & Sewell 2007). So, who or which institutions oversee employability and offer this kind of service to job seekers in Quebec? What is the contribution of employability to the Quebec economy?
In Quebec, there are 400 organizations offering employability services that are found in the seventeen administrative regions. These are members of six clusters working in close collaboration with the Ministère du travail de l’emploi et de la solidarité sociale. Among these clusters there is AXTRA, which includes 90 counseling centres found in 15 of these regions.
These job counseling centres participate in fighting poverty and social uncertainty because, while helping seekers to find jobs, they participate in improving the financial situations of these individuals and at the same time, in most cases, of entire families. By doing this, they take part in the social stability and the economic development of Quebec.
Since 1995, Cible Retour à l’Emploi, as a member of AXTRA, has helped hundreds of individuals to find jobs. This has been realized thanks to a competent and experienced team who know how to make the right evaluation of their needs and respond to them in the best way. This does not only consist of writing a resumé and a cover letter, but helping a job seeker to know themself, to look inward to know their one’s strengths and weaknesses, to know how to exhibit their competences and abilities to convince the eventual employer that he or she is the right person for the posted job and that their contribution will be beneficial for the company. What a great satisfaction is felt by the personnel of Cible when one of our participants manages to get a job! When we see that smile enlighten their face, we feel a profound joy and pride for the accomplished goal of our mission.
During the twenty-five years of existence of Cible Retour à l’Emploi, as in every organization, there has been some staff turnover. But the mission of our organization has stayed the same: to participate in the economic development of Québec because it is not that of individuals but one of an organization, the values of which transcend the possible changes that can happen in its staff.
Despite the pandemic circumstances, the personnel of Cible Retour à l’Emploi has managed to adjust their way of offering services by acquiring new means, be it material or virtual, for the accomplishment of their tasks and by staying informed and enriching their knowledge to offer the best services to their participants.
When we talk about the contribution of employability to the economy of Quebec, we not only talk about the financial changes that occur to individuals who manage to get a job thanks to the help they had from employment counsellors, but also about the information they obtained during their participation in their job search that will allow them to face the different challenges that will occur in their future lives. And this is quite immeasurable because we talk here about the development of a human being and not only numbers and statistics that will be shown during a Zoom presentation.
by Karim Bouaoui