SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A GNWT program aimed at keeping foreign workers in the NWT had a slow start due to the recession, but the program is gaining steam among employers in the service and hospitality industry, says the assistant deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

A GNWT program meant to bolster the NWT's foreign workforce is seeing increased interest from the service industry, says the assistant deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Here, Sarah Jiang, originally from south China, works the counter at A&W in Yellowknife. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL

In August 2009, the GNWT launched the NWT Nominee Program, a three-year pilot program meant to help bolster the workforce in industries where chronic staff shortages are the norm.

"We did sign our agreement late in the fiscal year ..." said Gloria Iatridis, assistant deputy minister of Education, Culture and Employment. "We also started during a bit of an economic recession.

"The purpose of the program is really designed to assist employers in recruiting and retaining foreign workers, and to help strengthen the NWT economy. But with the recession, the demands to fill labour shortages (were) not as high."

Under the program, employers apply to the department to have a foreign worker nominated for permanent residency.

It can take six to 18 months for nominees to get their application approved, faster than other immigration classes.

In the program's first fiscal year, only six applications were approved.

Thanks to some marketing and information sessions with employers in various communities, the word about the program has gotten out, said Iatridis.

"Right now we're currently reviewing six that have gone through a committee approval process," she said. "And we anticipate another 17 by the end of this (fiscal) year.

"We know that there are interested employers across the territory that have accessed information from our offices and we've had staff work with them to complete the application process."

The GNWT is particularly happy to see interest from employers in the hospitality and service industry – the very industry that called on the GNWT to adopt th program, said Iatridis.

"Last year, they were all in the skilled worker category. We know that the ones we're getting this fiscal year are more focused on the critical impact worker, which is the hospitality and service sector."

According to a 2009 survey of small businesses in the NWT conducted by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, just over three quarters of respondents identified the inability to find staff as the biggest challenge to running their stores.

Cheryl Deforest, executive director of the Smart Communities Society, which provides IT equipment to 19 municipalities in the territory, said the service sector's interest in the NWT Nominee Program is a good sign.

"I think it's an answer to some of the challenges that employers are experiencing up north – to bring in or encourage people from other cultures to come," said Deforest.

"Retention is a challenge ... and in order to keep the industry replenished, sometimes the workforce has to come from someplace else."

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