PRESS RELEASE
ECO Canada Announces New Employment Program for Young Professionals
Calgary, Alta., May 9, 2023 –
ECO Canada announces the Environmental Employability Pathways (EEP) Program is now open. This program is part of the Government of Canada’s Youth Employment and Skills Strategy (YESS) to help youth who have faced barriers navigate the labour market and develop skills to successfully transition into sustainable employment.
With nearly 30 per cent of the current workforce expected to retire in the next decade, there is a growing need to attract new talent, including young professionals and equity-seeking groups. By 2025, there are over 170,0000 environmental job openings expected to be filled. Labour shortages are predicted across a wide range of different occupations, including senior government managers, physical and life science professionals, inspectors in public and environmental health and occupational health and safety and urban and land use planners.
Through the EEP program, small and medium sized businesses can receive up to $12,000 in wage funding for their next hire. This program is open to participants who are ages 15-30, with a focus on an environmentally related role. Candidates and employers can fill out the eligibility application and will be informed once they are pre-qualified to participate in the program. Applications are open until March of 2024.
ECO Canada provides ongoing support for candidates to find a placement. ECO Canada offers a job board where job seekers can browse environmental opportunities and employers can post their job openings. Using AI matching systems, ECO Canada’s job board guarantees to reduce the time commitment for employers and professionals. Job seekers can upload their resume to be notified of jobs matching their skills and experience, ultimately creating an easier way to find jobs. The ECO Canada job board recently reached over 10,000 resume uploads.
ECO Canada’s commitment to the environmental workforce has created more than 15,000 job placements, and the federal subsidies released through their program oversight amounted to over $150 million in the last five years. Click here to view ECO Canada’s other employment programs.
ECO Canada remains dedicated to building a robust environmental workforce by helping students transition from post-secondary institutions to the workforce. The organization remains committed to ensuring Canada has an adequate supply of professionals with the demonstrated skills and knowledge to meet the environmental human resource needs.
This includes the public and private sectors with training, certification, employment programs and partnerships.
About ECO Canada:
ECO Canada is the steward of the Canadian environmental industry. From job creation and wage funding to training and labour market research – we champion the end-to-end career of an environmental professional. We aim to promote and drive responsible, sustainable economic growth within the industry while ensuring that environmental care and best practice are priorities. Over the past 30 years, we have forged academic partnerships, tools, and research to train and certify environmental job seekers and help fill the labour market.
We work alongside government, policymakers, academia, students, employers, professionals, industry, and international audiences to ensure we support Canada as a global leader in innovative workforce solutions and job creation. We remain the go-to source in the environmental labour market; our research provides unmatched statistics and analysis on the industry’s economic and labour trends that identify workforce gaps.
For more information, contact:
Aaron Wilson
VP, Marketing & Sales
ECO Canada
media@eco.ca
