Gordon B. Cooke, Memorial University of Newfoundland

1. Young Rural Workers: What to do and where to go? Presented at ACRI/CIRA Annual Meeting – May/13Ryerson University - University of Toronto; and Employer Roundtable – June 17/13 - Guelph Gordon B. Cooke, Memorial University of Newfoundland Jennifer K. Burns, Memorial University of Newfoundland Sara L. Mann, University of Guelph Kyle Vardy, Memorial University of Newfoundland This research is supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (#864-2007-0090) held by the first author, as well as by a grant from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food & Rural Affairs held by the third author.

2. Agenda • Purpose • Selected lit review • Methodological details • Results • Discussion

3. Purpose of study • Purpose: • to evaluate the robustness of the typology from Cooke (2012) and Cooke, Mann, & Burns (under review) of young, rural adults: • High Fliers: focused on education and employment/career ambitions, and thus likely to leave their rural location to pursue those passions. • Mid Fliers: ambitious, in terms of education and employment or career, but prioritizing (rural) location. As such, will stay in the rural location if there are sufficiently good options available. • Upstream Swimmers: focused on (current) employment within the local rural area. Given the realities of contemporary labour markets, the limited geographic scope and lack of post-secondary skills/education typically results in secondary market type work. • The typology was conceptualized based on a small number of semi-structured interviews conducted in Ireland, Shetland, Newfoundland, and Ontario. • The robustness of the typology is being assessed via additional interviews plus surveys of post-secondary students in rural locations.

4. Selected literature review (1 of 2) • Working conditions in Canada and beyond have become polarized, and expectations are that this will continue to increase (Betcherman and Lowe, 1997; OECD, 2006). • Accessing good quality employment in rural areas can be even more difficult since options tend to be poorer, or at least less diverse (Alasia, 2010). Generally speaking, there is an urban-rural gap in terms of attained education as well as employment conditions (see Brereton et al., 2011; NLFL, 2009). • To us, comparisons between Newfoundland and Ireland are of interest because they share similarities in terms of historical economic difficulties, high unemployment, and tradition of outmigration (Cooke, 2012). That said, both have experienced economic resurgences, although current conditions vary.

5. Selected literature review (2 of 2) • Ontario is also of interest because it has struggled to restructure its economy over the past decade or more, despite have been seen as the economic engine in the past (see Lin, 2008; RBC 2011). We also initially expected to find differences between rural south-western Ontario vs. rural Newfoundland, since the former is more rural than the latter. • Young rural people face a choice regarding staying or going, and whether to work or study (Shucksmith et al., 2009), and the evidence suggests that young people are the ones more likely to out-migrate than older workers (Bernard, Finnie, and St-Jean, 2008).

6. Methodological Details • Based on a total of 31 semi-structured interviews conducted during 2009-2013 in rural locations in Ontario, Newfoundland, Ireland, and Shetland, as well as selected additional interviews conducted in various locations in rural Ontario in 2011 from a second study. • Interviews were conducted in these locations to see if differences could be detected due to local political/legal/social factors affecting education, employment, and/or location patterns. • Interview participants were located using convenience sampling, but also purposively via contacts with youth and social organizations within various communities. • Results are also based on initial impressions from over 500 completed surveys gathered from students at Ireland’s Letterkenny Institute of Technology (Lyit), Lyit School of Tourism (LST) in Killybegs, Georgian College in Owen Sound ON), and College of the North Atlantic in Burin, NL (town). The Irish institutions are roughly equivalent to a Canadian community college. • For this presentation, the analysis of the survey data is restricted to our initial impressions, due to the sheer volume of data collected between January and May 2013.

7. Results (1 of 2): from interviews • We found very few participants who were KEEN to leave their rural hometown. Even among the ones who are leaving, or who have left (and might have been home visiting), the excitement had more to do with the chance to work or study, rather than the chance to leave... • We found that many young rural adults have thought deeply about accepting a ‘hometown discount’. That is, they have decided how much better pay, benefits, promotion opportunities or job security would need to be before they will leave. Very few will leave simply because opportunities ‘away’ are better. Those opportunities need to be tangibly better. • Our three categories are too simple and too static! • We found participants who jumped between our three categories. • Some participants had gone away to an urban university or college, but circumstances or choices changed, and now those individuals are on a track towards being mid fliers or upstream swimmers. • Very rural individuals face very stark choices, because there are few local programs or institutions to acquire post-secondary skills/education. A simple budget cut or program consolidation can shift people from mid fliers to upstream swimmers, and one program expansion can shift people from upstream swimmers to mid fliers... • There were public policy success stories. With good bridging and support programs, a non-academic person can find a path from being an upstream swimmer to a better path.

8. Results (2 of 2): Impressions from surveys • As we had presumed, many of the rural post-secondary students who we surveyed had chosen a local institution to save money. We think of these as mid-fliers since they have stayed ‘local’ and would do so after finishing their education if they could. • When thinking of their first job after finishing their education, ‘work atmosphere’ and ‘opportunities for advancement’ were, on average, more important to post-secondary students than salary, benefits, work location, and vacation time. • With respect to location factors when thinking of their first job after finishing their education, ‘cost of living’ and ‘being close to friends and family’ were more important, on average, than strength of the local economy, weather/climate, geography/physical beauty, local arts/culture, or being in a big city for these rural post-secondary students. • On the whole, many of these students were prepared to move away for better employment opportunities, but were typically going to do so because of poor local employment options rather than a desire to seek a adventure or a change.

9. Discussion (1 of 1) • Should we incentivize young rural adults to attend local post-secondary institutions rather than distance ones? • How worthwhile is it to invest in rural post-secondary institutions if there is not corresponding investment in direct job creation? • Does it make sense to do one but not the other? • Is it a choice between neither or both? • Where should the public policy emphasis and funding be placed within rural communities? • On younger workers or other workers or spread evenly? • If on younger individuals, should we target mid-fliers (i.e. academic and career-oriented types) or should we target upstream swimmers (i.e. those struggling now and who are likely to struggle in the future)?

10. Questions? Comments? Complaints?! Gordon B. Cooke, Memorial University of Newfoundland Jennifer K. Burns, Memorial University of Newfoundland Sara L. Mann, University of Guelph Kyle Vardy, Memorial University of Newfoundland

11. Cited References • Alasia, Alessandro. 2003. “Rural and urban educational attainment: An investigation of patterns and trends, 1981 – 1996.” Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin 4(5):1-22. Statistics Canada Catalogue number 21-006-XIE. • Alasia, Alessandro. 2010. “Population Change Across Canadian Communities, 1981 to 2006, The Role of Sector Restructuring, Agglomeration, Diversification and Human Capital. Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin 8(4):1-25. Statistics Canada Catalogue number 21-006-X. • Bernard, André, Ross Finnie, and Benoît St-Jean. 2008. “Interprovincial mobility and earnings.” Perspectives on Labour and Income, 9(10): 15-25, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 75-001-X. • Brereton, Finbarr, Craig Bullock, J. Peter Clinch, and Mark Scott. 2011. “Rural change and individual well-being: the case of Ireland and rural quality of life.”European Urban and Regional Studies, 18(2): 203-227. • Cooke, G.B. 2012. High Fliers versus Upstream Swimmers: Young rural workers in Canada and Ireland. In Youth Unemployment and Joblessness: Causes, Consequences, Responses: 151-168. Association for International and Comparative Studies in the field of Labour law and Industrial Relations (ADAPT). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN (10): 1-4438-4056-4 & ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4056-4 • Cooke, G.B., S.L. Mann, and J.K. Burns. Under third review. Education and employment choices among young rural workers in Canada and Ireland: A tale of two studies. Proposed book chapter. • Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour [NLFL] with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. 2009. Newfoundland & Labrador: Weathering the Storm? Discussion Paper. http://www.nlfl.nf.ca/briefs-and-presentations/2009/ Accessed April 4, 2011. • Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD]. 2006. Reinventing rural policy. Policy brief. • Royal Bank of Canada [RBC] (2011) Provincial Outlook (for Canada), December 2011. RBC Economics Research. Accessed December 16, 2011. www.rbc.com/economics/market/pdf/provfcst.pdf . • Shucksmith Mark, Stuart Cameron, Tanya Merridew, and Florian Pichler. 2009. “Urban–Rural Differences in Quality of Life across the European Union.” Regional Studies, 43(10): 1275–1289.