Gary Davis. (Darren Brown, OBJ)

OTI told funding will cease in October, then told no decision has been made

Gary Davis, executive director of the Ottawa Talent Initiative (OTI), is used to uncertainty, but this is getting ridiculous.

Since the OTI was founded to help laid-off tech workers find a way back into the workforce in 2004, it has been threatened with funding cuts several times by the federal government. Now that its funding is in the hands of the provincial government, it once again faces a funding cut. But then again, maybe it doesn't.

The future of the OTI took a turn for the worse when the province inherited the entire workforce support network (which includes over 20 programs in Ottawa that deal with different aspects of unemployment) from the federal government in January 2007. These employment agencies, along with all the money that had been poured into them for two years, have been contracted out until about the end of 2008, according to Mr. Davis.

The province announced they would examine these programs for two years and then decide what needed to be changed in 2009. In the meantime, the Ontario government pledged $350,000 in one-time funding for OTI to keep its action centre going until the end of October.

"My point to them is, why not fund OTI for another year, continue these services, and we'll consult with you over this period? At the end of 2008, we'll participate and whatever comes out of that you will have our input and we can be part of your workforce strategy," said Mr. Davis.

The government's answer to that proposal came during a July 17 meeting at a Kanata YMCA with Patrick Donnelly, manager with the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU). He said no.

Instead, Mr. Donnelly said funding would be cut as of Oct. 31.

However, MPP for London West and Minister of the MTCU, Chris Bentley, said that no decision had been made to cut funding, despite what was said at the meeting by his manager. Mr. Donnelly did not respond to OBJ's request for his take on the matter.

"The minister, who has the final say on this, has been clear that there is no decision made about OTI," said Sheamus Murphy, press secretary for Mr. Bentley. "I don't know where this October date came from. No decision has been made."

The whole mess has left OTI and its clients confused and angry.

"Completely mixed messages to me. I understood no. Then Chris says 'I haven't made any decision, I don't know what they're talking about.' So I don't know what to believe," said Mr. Davis. "Also, in all my experience in dealing with politicians and bureaucrats, this is the first time I have seen a contradiction like that."

It is interesting to note, however, that there is a provincial election coming up on Oct. 10, and the government might be holding off on making the announcement that it will cease funding until after that time.

Mr. Murphy said many of the employment programs that were run by the federal government will be integrated into the province's employment network after Dec. 31.

Although there will be no special measures for the difficulties that high tech workers face when looking for employment, Mr. Murphy said if the OTI is indeed shut down, the regional focus of the network will make sure that each region of Ontario links to workers with the local business community. But will that be enough for workers looking to land a job in a volatile environment like Ottawa's high tech sector?

"What the MTCU plans to do is suitable for anybody except the high tech sector," said one former client of the OTI, Robert Norris, who is in the process of starting up his own high tech company after being laid off several years ago from Alcatel. He is pushing hard to have the OTI remain open. "The sector is volatile, rapidly changing and because the program is member-driven, we can implement new aspects very quickly."

Mr. Norris said that a lot of the workers are finding short-term contract work and others don't have the proper "filter words" to get through high-tech HR departments.

Adding fresh fuel to the fire is a new StatsCan report that supports what OTI has been arguing the whole time: Ottawa tech workers were hit harder and have been harder to re-employ than other workers in Canada.

The report, titled Life After the High-tech Downturn: Permanent Layoffs and Earning Losses of Displaced Workers, was released July 20. It indicated, among other things, that a stunning 80 per cent of workers laid off by the region's tech employers in the downturn did not find other work in the high tech sector and about 40 per cent of them left the city altogether.

It also pointed out that laid-off manufacturing tech workers who managed to find a new job saw a very steep decline in earnings, as they often had to take jobs in other sectors rather than in their field of expertise (see graph).

The report indicated workers who were laid off from their manufacturing high-tech jobs in 2001 saw a decline of $11,700 in earnings from 2000 to 2003.

"Two points are evident from these results. First, laid-off high-tech workers generally experience far greater earnings losses than workers in other industries. Second, manufacturing high-tech workers who were laid off during the downturn saw the greatest earnings losses of all groups of workers examined," the report concluded.

"This supports that there are unique aspects to this industry and we need a new mechanism for how to deal with them," said Mr. Davis.