When students and clients take the ERS assessment, they identify the barriers they face. Many clients experience multiple barriers or challenges that act as stressors and can be incapacitating if not managed well. Students and clients facing significant challenges who have no assistance in handling them are likely to fail at work even if they are successful in finding a job.
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When students and clients take the ERS assessment, they identify challenges they face. Many clients seeking employment face numerous barriers or challenges that act as stressors and can be incapacitating if not addressed. Clients facing significant challenges without assistance in handling them are likely to fail at work even if they are successful in securing a job.
We analyzed ERS data for 2024 to understand what clients were identifying as barriers to finding and keeping employment, and how if at all, they have changed since the pandemic when many norms of work-life balance were brought into question. We also compare results from 3 countries - Australia, US, and Canada to pick up any cultural differences. The following are some insights from the analysis.
Barriers to Employment
Summary of Results
Introduction
The ERS is an online self-assessment tool that measures five soft skills and four employability skills. In addition, it assess three barriers (challenges) to employment. It is an outcome validated tool in that, once a client is assessed as being fully employment ready, there is an 80% probability of finding employment in the next 90 days and retaining it for at least 6 months. The assessment questions were developed over an extensive three year pilot project sponsored by the Government of British Coumbia and the Canadian Federal Government. The assessment takes about twenty minutes to complete and generates a report that is shared with the client to use as a basis for developing an action plan.
The assessment consists of 75 questions - the first 45 questions are used to measure skills on a five point scale from strongly disagree to strong agree. The remaining 30 questions (Part B shown below) are to measure three barriers - personal, environmental, and systemic:
Personal challenges, or stresses are ones a client can address on their own. Examples include concerns about personal relationships, personal health; legal status, or upgrading academic skills.
Environmental challenges, or responsibilities are where a clients needs help with such as caring for young children or aging parents, a lack of proper work clothes or tools, concerns about others' health, or a death in the family.
Systemic challenges are stresses related to discriminatory attitudes and physical barriers. They are usually outside one's ability to change, but clients can be helped to deal with them more effectively . Examples include job requirements that automatically exclude certain groups of people, concerns about a lack of affordable housing, transportation, or a lack of recognition of foreign credentials.
These questions require a binary True/False response as shown below. Students and clients are asked to respond honestly as there are no right or wrong answers and the objective is to find gaps in skill set that can be addressed through interventions.
Results
The most common challenges reported by Canadian clients in 2019 (pre-pandemic) were:
I never seem to have enough money to survive without assistance 61%
I can't find affordable housing near where I want to work. 58%
I don't have enough education. 56%
I can't find affordable child care near where I want to work. 51%
I don't have proper clothes for work. 48%
Concerns about making ends meet were foremost in the minds of clients, followed by lack of affordable housing; lack of enough education; and affordable child care.
Fast forward to 2024 after the pandemic and two changes stand out: First, significantly fewer clients (a drop of 10%) are stressed by housing; having enough money to surive on (7% drop); and having enough education (9% drop). Clearly the pandemic gave pause to clients in how they manage their work-life balance. There could be several explanations for this decline such as: the pandemic made people move away from high cost metropolitan living areas to alleviate rising housing costs, or find other means to cope with housing costs.The government financial supports during the pandemic gave clients a cushion to build up savings; and, the pandemic gave clients time away from paid work to upgrade their education.
Secondly, there is a clear shift in top of the mind concerns. Cost of housing now shares the top concern along with not having enough financial resources to survive on. The fifth highest stressor, "I am having health or emotional problems" and subsequent stressors are related to a general sense of anxiety and well-being.
I can't find affordable housing near where I want to work. 51%
I never seem to have enough money to survive without assistance. 51%
I don't have enough education. 47%
I often feel like a failure. 42%
I am having health or emotional problems. 40%
The data suggest that clients at all levels of readiness have challenges for which they need coping strategies if they are to be successful in their work life.
Comparing 2024 data between countries, there are some variations in barriers. The chart below highligths five challenges that are rank high on clients' feedback reports.
Housing concerns ranks high in Canada (51%) while in the US it is lack of education (58%); and in Australia, housing (58%) and mental well-being (51%) rank high. The data does not normalize for variances between agencies. Therefore it may be that Australian agencies have a higher pecentages of clients experiencing health or emotional problems.
The last comparison is between all clients and self-identified persons-with-disabilities (PWD). It compares the relationship of employment readiness with employment barriers. The first chart shows clients who are employment ready. It shows that pesonal and environmental challenges are almost the same between PWD and all clients, while systemic challenges are felt more by PWD clients (29% versus 21%), albeit much lower than the other barriers. Chart 2 compares the data for clients who are not employment ready. Here it is evident that the persons with disabilities are experiencing more barriers in all three categories, but signifcantly more in personal and systemic challenges. While the data does not distinguish between types of disabilities, there is an indication that more could be done to lessen the barriers to employment for not employment ready clients with disabilities..
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