1. Strengthen school-to-work linkages
While high school completion rates among Indigenous youth improved significantly between 2006 and 2016, university completion rates worsened compared to non-Indigenous youth. One reason: poor employment for Indigenous students, especially in the service sectors. About 20% of the Indigenous workforce is employed in trades, transportation and equipment operations, compared to about 15% for the non-Indigenous population. By contrast, only 5.5% are employed in management positions, compared to 9% for the non-Indigenous workforce, and the gap is growing.
As employers begin to rebuild and rehire, and governments commit billions to economic reconstruction, creating more workforce linkages for Indigenous students will be critical. This can start with more internships, co-ops and mentorships that cultivate both workplace skills and help youth develop meaningful aspirations. These experiences also create stronger links for youth to local labour markets. This approach to human capital needs to extend further into businesses, too, to ensure better Indigenous representation on corporate boards, participation in collective bargaining and access to training funds that should be part of all development projects.
2. Build connected infrastructure
Most Canadians take connectivity for granted. For Indigenous Canadians, that’s not the case. Nearly half of the status First Nations population lives on reserves, many of which are disconnected from the digital economy. A lack of reliable access to broadband not only limits commercial activity for Indigenous businesses; it constrains access to online learning, telehealth and remote work. The digital infrastructure for remote communities needs to be completed, no later than the federal promise of 2030, and in a way that anticipates future demands on networks.
Indigenous ownership over infrastructure projects — digital, transportation, healthcare or energy — can strengthen the self-sufficiency of communities by providing diversified revenue and long-term employment. Building these connections will be exponentially more important to community prosperity in the post-COVID era where e-commerce is becoming the preference for many consumers, and big employers look to more distributed workforce models.