Mr. Speaker, I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement on Aboriginals and Northerners getting employment with our government. More specifically, constituents are contacting me. They’re telling me that a lot of the entry-level positions, they seem to be overqualified as well as they’re being screened out because they’re not being credited for their years of service. I understand, and perhaps the Minister of Human Resources can answer the question, when they have years of service it kind of qualifies for education equivalency. Maybe the Minister can explain that to me.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Directly related experience sometimes can be used as equivalencies. When the departments do a job description, in the process of advertising a position then they put in the qualifications, and the minimum qualifications are used to advertise jobs, so an individual that has lot of experience but no education, if the experience they have accumulated over the years of public service is not directly related or does not enhance their possibility of doing the position that’s being advertised then those qualifications would not be considered equivalencies.
The Minister touched on it briefly. It’s still not clear. Is it three years of experience is equivalent to some type of education level or programming or degree? Perhaps the Minister can answer that.
With our Regional Recruitment Strategy, if there is directly related experience, that would be then viewed very closely by the department and the Department of Human Resources when developing equivalencies for a position. If an individual is applying for a job in accounting and does have directly related accounting experience but maybe not the education, then we may use the Regional Recruitment Strategy, and the department may say that this directly related experience would be considered an equivalency, and then that person could be put in the job at that point. But it’s very difficult to speak on this issue unless it’s very specific, because some things may appear to be directly related but there may be some specifics in the actual job description that do not directly fit, but that is what we’re trying to achieve. Thank you.
The Minister somewhat clearly described the process of equivalencies, but my issue is that I have three files in my constituency where people have been screened out. They do have the years of experience, some certification. More specifically, it was an accounting clerk position, an entry-level position in our government yet they wanted three years of business management and a bunch of experience. No wonder people are frustrated with trying to get a job within our government.
Can the Minister explain why entry-level jobs have such a high qualification? I know that when somebody gets into a job, they learn the environment, they learn their job, they can be very good employees, but it’s a matter of getting our people in the door. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the departments across the GNWT use the Hay Plan system to evaluate jobs. Essentially when there is a job that is required and the department has put out a job description, that job is then matched with what type of qualifications would be needed in advance, before the job is ever advertised.
Our goal – and we are actively trying to develop that goal – is to try to match the individuals in the communities to these jobs as much as possible. It is unfortunate that so many people that feel they have qualifications and may be close to what they’re applying for are being screened out. We would certainly like to hear specifically about those. We know we’ve heard of a couple that we’re working on now to determine exactly what has occurred, but the idea is exactly what the Member is requesting, that we would bring people that have qualifications that are close, not exactly matching, to train them, using regional recruitment to train them to bring them into those positions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I guess another issue that’s directly related to this is that we have 570 job vacancies in our government, 21 of them in Fort Simpson alone, but it appears that there are three or four of them advertised. Those impacted employees who are going through the shared services reorganization certainly have first priority at those. The Aboriginals and Northerners in my communities want to apply on jobs but they’re limited. There are 21 positions in Simpson.
What are the Minister and this government doing about getting those jobs out in the public system and getting people to apply on them? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m working with the Department of HR to deal with all of the departments. We are taking a very close look at what’s happening with 575 positions that are to be staffed.
As the Member can appreciate, we can’t put 571 jobs out there at some stage of vacancy. Some would be just recently vacant. Well, that was back in October, but when you take a snapshot, some have been recently vacant and not out for advertisement yet. Some are going through advertisement, some are being temporarily filled by a casual, a transfer assignment, or some are in the offer stage and some are waiting for an appeal. So there is a spectrum that we have to look at the 571 positions, but we are working with the departments and we are confident that departments are moving through all of those positions and trying to fill them. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
