Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the job opportunities that are being denied the public, for goodness sakes.
On the GNWT’s website there were only 71 postings, half were in Yellowknife and half were outside of Yellowknife.
Where are the remainder of the 500 jobs that the Finance Minister proclaims to the public that they are actively pursuing? I’m asking the Minister of Human Resources, where are the other jobs? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As of February 17, 2014, of the 571 vacant positions, 156 of them were filled and the other ones are in the various processes, currently being filled by transfer assignment or casual while we’re trying to find an incumbent, they were recently vacant or at some point been through the interview stage or the advertising stage or the offer stage. So they’re at the various stages and it would not be possible for us to advertise and fill 571 jobs at one time. Thank you.
What the Minister failed to say was how many new job openings were created while these 156 jobs are in the process of being filled. At the same time, the Minister says he can’t advertise the jobs because it would be impossible. Why? Well, I don’t know because, my goodness, how do you fill the jobs if you don’t advertise? So can the Minister answer that interesting quagmire he has now found himself in?
Thank you. The number of 571 is a snapshot on October 31, 2013, and that’s when those vacancies were positioned. However, throughout the year we advertise the jobs and fill the jobs. So, yes, I’m positive that there have been more vacancies since October 31st, but we won’t know that number until we take another snapshot six months after that. We’re taking the PeopleSoft system and we’re taking it off the PeopleSoft on a semi-annual basis. Thank you.
You would think it would be a very paramount job of the Minister of Human Resources to know exactly how many vacancies we have, not to wait to each quarter or semi-quarter, who knows how you want to paint it.
Why doesn’t the Minister, realizing how important this issue is, while the House is sitting, why doesn’t he know how many jobs are vacant because these are rolling vacancies if someone gets hired, somebody changes their mind and doesn’t want to work there anymore. So we have an average vacancy built up throughout the Northwest Territories government at all times.
Why doesn’t the Minister know what’s going on with these vacancies and about how many are available? Thank you.
Thank you. The PeopleSoft system is designed to give us snapshot reports. We use that as a management tool to hire, track, recruit, retain our employees and this was a snapshot that we provided to the House on October 2013 and we’ll do that again in April of 2014. We act accordingly. We continuously are attempting to fill positions. We work with the departments and it’s important for us that we make every effort to fill the vacancies and we do. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If anyone doesn’t know, apparently we use PeopleSoft, because I think it has been said at least seven times if not more. Maybe we should have the PeopleSoft program sitting in one of those seats answering all these questions because if we only have information from October and we don’t get new information until April, that has to be at least six months. This is such an important issue.
What is the Minister going to do to ensure Northerners have current information before them so they can apply for these jobs? Because I can tell you, up and down this Valley, all four corners of the Northwest Territories, people want to work and if nobody knows in that government, in that department where these jobs are, how will Northerners know? What will the Minister do? Thank you.
Thank you. We have recruitment and marketing strategies to fill vacancies. That’s what we’re doing. We’re working with the department. Every effort is being made. PeopleSoft is not actually a person; PeopleSoft is a system that we go to, to capture information from. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. A little bit of order here. Order! Okay, oral questions. The Member for Range Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
