Pre-Budget Submission 2024-2025

The Provincial Employment Roundtable Table (PERT) is pleased to submit this brief and proposition to the Ministry of Finance’s 2024-25 Pre-budget consultations. Founded in 2020, PERT is a non-profit organization focused on addressing the employment and employability issues that are being faced by Québec’s English-speaking communities. Since its creation, PERT has become the leading voice on the solutions to English speakers’ employment challenges. Through its research and stakeholder coordination work, PERT has published over 25 reports that capture the employment issues and needs of English speakers across all 17 regions of the province and has established a membership of 90 employment service deliverers, educational institutions, regional organizations, and employers. The employment situation of Québec’s English-speaking population continues to worsen, as demonstrated by the higher unemployment rates and French-language barriers that English speakers face in Québec’s labour market. In this brief, we identify two key contributors to the continued employment challenges of English speakers: a lack of targeted employment services and programs for English speakers and a lack of work-integrated French language training programs to help them enter and remain in the labour market. English speakers’ employment and economic challenges are part of the larger economic headwinds that are facing Québec, which include unprecedented labour shortages, demographic decline, and problems with attracting and retaining talent. This mémoire summarizes PERT’s research findings, particularly the employment challenges facing the English-speaking community in Québec, and advances recommendations for the next budget that will address these challenges and help create a more productive, inclusive, and prosperous Québec for all.