Windsor’s Unemployed Help Centre annually sees 14,000 walk through its doors who now will be better able to make connections with employers thanks to a new $650,000 resource centre which was unveiled on Friday.
“It’s a place where people can gather, look at the employment opportunities and prepare themselves,” said Gary Parent, president of the centre’s board of directors. “They can see whether there are any skills they are missing. The centre will then direct them into those avenues so they can better prepare to be in the working environment.”
Construction of the new resource and information at the centre’s primary location off Lauzon Parkway in the 6900 block of Cantelon Drive was funded by Employment Ontario and took about three months to complete.
“With the computerization that’s here it brings jobs to people’s fingertips better than before,” Parent said.
But of the 14,000 who turned to the centre for help last year, only 1,000 were able to secure a job – and that concerns Parent. Windsor’s unemployment rate last month was the highest in Canada at 9.6 per cent.
“That figure really sticks in my mind that there remains a great need in this community of people trying to find employment and where do they go for help,” he said. “We think the unemployed help centre provides that for this community.”
Helping people find jobs locally can not be the responsibility of any one level of government, but requires strong community partners such as the unemployed help centre, said Coun. Percy Hatfield who attended the resource centre’s opening.
“Some like to put on rose-coloured glasses and say everything is fine (in Windsor), but unfortunately it’s not,” Hatfield said. “We do have the highest unemployment in Canada.
“We have a lot of challenges facing us and that’s what this place is all about. Where would we be without the unemployed help centre?”
June Muir, CEO of the Unemployed Help Centre, along with other dignitaries, cut a ribbon at the grand opening of the new UHC in WIndsor on Friday, November 16, 2012. (TYLER BROWNBRIDGE / The Windsor Star)
