Long-term Unemployed

December 7, 2020

At the onset of this project in 2019, there was an emphasis on the long-term unemployed because the economy was seeing robust growth and it was an excellent opportunity to create a community-wide strategy to help marginalized people out of work. Creating community connections in Hamilton and an action strategy with a platform to lift the long-term unemployed was a key priority for the Hamilton community. Skills shortages were one of the top issues in the community and mobilizing our entire workforce was an imperative to meet the demand for workers as the shortages continued to grow. In March 2020, all of this data changed as the COVID-19 pandemic ravished our local economy and workforce and further emphasized the importance of focusing on unemployed people in our community.

It is important to keep in mind the group of long-term unemployed prior to the pandemic have a different set of needs than the new list of growing long-term unemployed. These are multi-barriered individuals that need community resources to help them attach to the labour market. Originally this project was also going to be closely linked with Ontario Works clients as the vast majority of their clients are long-term unemployed. This link is still very important and will need to be re-established. This report will focus on this group.

Long-term unemployment was a concern before the COVID-19 Pandemic but during the last few months has become an even bigger issue for the community. The number of people who have been unemployed for six months or longer has drastically increased and many entry-level jobs have been lost.

This report analyses the data from the survey and a literature review of best practices of other projects that worked on supporting the long-term unemployed and in turn, local recommendations to support long-term unemployed

Read the full report below!