An easier way to dig out federal government information was shown to rural participants at a seminar Jan. 28 in Saskatoon.
During the session entitled Making Data and Information Count for Communities, attendees were shown what government resources were available to Saskatchewan residents and how the information can be used for community planning.
“I think that one of the main needs for people in any community is to understand what data is available for their research,” said Shane Reoch, an economist with Service Canada and a speaker at the seminar.
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Much of Reoch’s presentation focused on forecasting the outlook for various economic sectors in Saskatchewan, and making the younger population aware of opportunities. To this end, he said, a job chart had been distributed to all high school students in Saskatchewan last month.
Among the resources discussed were two websites that offer information on the current labour market and job opportunities: saskjobfutures.ca and labourmarketinformation.ca.
“The forecast that we do is cross-industry, so we do an agricultural forecast….We also do an occupational forecast so students can look at agriculture related occupations whether it’s in the rural areas or agricultural technology positions, and maybe pursue those as careers.”
Many of the attendees knew the resources were out there but were unaware that they could be accessed over the internet.
“I think (the information) was good,” said Larry Sanders of the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada.
“The data, I now know where to get it. I can get it off the web rather than having to pay for it or dig it out of a library.”
Sanders added the intent was to get tools to people to show how they can use information that’s publicly available and posted on the web.
“I know I’ve learned a lot about stuff that I can take back to my office and work on.”
