Business Retention and Expansion Study for Collingwood's Industrial/Employment Sector

Overall Findings

Workforce

Of the industries interviewed, 75% report employing a full-time labour force of 1,706. More than 67% of the full-time labour force work at four of the eighteen industries who provided employee data. We did not receive employment data from 6 of 24 industries.

Of the executives interviewed, 48% anticipate the labour force numbers will remain the same over the next three years. Another 35% of executives anticipate an increase over the same period as a result of:

• Increased market competition (38%) and sales (75%),

• Corporate decisions/policies (38%),

• Management effectiveness (38%),

• The introduction of new products/services (63%).

More than 52% of the Collingwood industrial executives report a “good” level of stability with the local workforce, but identify they are having the greatest difficulty recruiting for skilled trades.

Employees receive customized (70%) or in-house (78%) training. On occasion both types of training are utilized. Numerous factors were identified by industrial employers as being significant barriers to training and include:

• Relevant training not being offered at the community college (45%)

• Distance to training facility (60%)

• Lack of local available training (40%)

• Inability to release employees (40%)

• Loss of productivity during the training period (45%)

It should be noted that Economic Development has assisted various industries with information related to the apprenticeship and skilled labour programs.


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