Big thank you to everybody who took the time to come out to our latest Partnership Forum on June 26 – Envisioning Future Community Economic Development.

We had a positive discussion on the strengths and opportunities in our local economy and recognized some long-term weaknesses and threats.

Best of all we generated a long list of potential investments in development projects for the future and, unexpectedly, also a large number of possible business opportunities. More to come soon on the latter but we have updated our venture opportunities listing with what we heard.

We will be publishing public reports on all our forums from now on. This latest can be accessed here, and includes the full lists of potential projects and business ideas.

For those that missed the forum, the presentation can be accessed here.

We invite everybody to participate in a partnership forum dedicated to identifying future community-based economic development projects:

City of Dawson has two residential properties for sale at 2nd and York.

For more details follow:

http://www.cityofdawson.ca/municipal-info/tenders-proposals-rfps

When KDO was formed in 2009, there was much discussion of the community population. Falling 18% from a high of 2151 in 1997 to a low of 1765 in 2003, the Dawson population had settled and stagnated, and was at 1873 in 2009.

There was a strong feeling that this decline was critically impacting the community’s economy, its resilience and successful enterprise development. A focus on stimulating modest population growth could contribute significantly to sustaining both public and private services, employment, incomes and the quality of life of Dawson’s residents. City of Dawson revenues, for example, are closely tied to the population and economic base.

This population growth objective was written into the KDO strategic plan in 2009 as a measurable gauge of success and a return to the previous high of 1997 was imagined.

The latest population report from the Yukon Bureau of Statistics puts the Dawson population at 2000 for the first time in 14 years. This is a rise of 127, or 7%, in the three years since KDO started work.

Amidst everything, sometimes it is just nice to recognize when things are going well.

Dawson Population Chart December 2012
Dawson Population Table December 2012

All are invited to our public meeting to discuss local labour market issues. Representatives from Yukon Government, Advanced Education Branch will be in attendance to talk about their work, an overview of existing programs, and to receive input from the community on ways to improve programs and/or their uptake in Dawson.

The meeting is at noon on Tuesday, May 7 at the Downtown Hotel. Menu service will be available if you would like to order lunch.

Subjects will include:

1- Training & Skills Development
2- Employee Recruitment and Retention
3- Immigration (e.g. Temporary Foreign Worker Program)
4- Labour Market Information

Further information about programs offered by the Advanced Education Branch can be found at:

http://www.education.gov.yk.ca/advanceded/

We hope to see you there!

Did you miss the forum?
A pdf version of our presentation is available:
Housing Forum Presentation (web version)

If you would like to see the video version of the small spaces virtual tour, just email us and we can send it your way.

We would like to invite you to a public forum on the subject of housing.

Date: April 24
Location: Downtown Hotel conference Room

6:30 PM Doors Open
7:00 PM Presentation by KDO followed by open community discussion

We are investigating the possibility of developing a rental housing complex on a not-for-profit basis. We’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions about that, as well as engage in broad discussions about housing needs in the community.

In addition to continuing our regular services to entrepreneurs and the wider community, we are working on two new special projects as our part of implementing the new regional economic development plan. These are labour market development and local procurement promotion.

In our BusinessSurvey in 2011, 30% of businesses noted staffing as their biggest issue.

To date, regional awareness and understanding of, and participation in, the development and implementation of Yukon-wide labour market strategies has been below that required for them to be effective in the region. Programs for employers through the existing Canada-Yukon Labour Market Development Agreement include job creation partnerships, targeted wage subsidies and labour market partnerships but the regional uptake is low.

We have begun work on the development of our first regional labour market development strategy. We are currently working with Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, Yukon College, Klondike Outreach Employment Services, other community stakeholders, businesses and the Yukon Advanced Education managers responsible for the Labour Market Framework for Yukon, to build general awareness and understanding of the existing mandates, strategies and programs of regional players.

Using this information and a thorough analysis of existing research and statistics, we will develop our first Regional Labour Market Development Strategy, specifically attuned to the needs of the Klondike.

We hope to host the first in a series of public events on this by the end of April.

In the meantime, if you would like to learn more or have some ideas or suggestions on this topic, please do not hesitate to contact us.