A former Williams Lake City Councillor is stepping into the role of Business Outreach Liaison.
Laurie Walters has been hired as business outreach liaison as part of the Williams Lake Hiring Initiative project to work with employers who are struggling to hire for positions.
“This is week two of getting into the work,” she said.
“There’s been quite a bit of work that has been done previously by other groups here, so I’m just gathering a lot of information right now then I’m hoping to hit the ground running into businesses and have conversations with them. The idea at the end of the day is to come up with some solutions to meet those challenges.”
The Williams Lake Hiring Initiative is a pilot project funded by the Government of Canada and the Province of B.C. through a Labour Market Partnership with the Ministry of Social Development
It will run until June 2020 with Walters stationed in the Cariboo Chilcotin Community Futures Business Centre at 266 Oliver Street.
“Certainly my role as City Councillor and being here in the community for as many years as I have been, and then with working for the Division of Family Practice in attracting physicians and retaining physicians into the community it’s all-encompassing and I think Williams Lake has a lot to offer, however, since the fires there has a lot of employers have been challenged with finding employees,” Walters said.
“The shortage of workers is across Canada nationwide, but I think this being a pilot project demonstrates that the City is listening to the challenges that employers have and here we’re hopefully going to be able to customize the labour market concerns and make it our own and address them for this region.”