propel Talent is an active committee of professionals from the ICT and education sectors focused on growing, attracting and retaining talent within the ICT sector of New Brunswick through an integrated workforce solution addressing:

• Attracting new students
• Immigration for internationally-educated professionals
• Repatriation

Contrary to the regional conditions of the ICT industry when propel was formed in late 2004 when unemployment was high and businesses were leaving, the current situation in our sector is characterized by vibrancy, growth, and diversity with the attraction of talent as the top priority.

 

In late 2006, propel and UNB surveyed the industry province-wide and found that there was a tremendous optimism in the industry characterized by growth expectations and specific anticipated talent needs totalling 1,700 jobs across New Brunswick before 2011 as reported in the 2006 Qualifications Need Survey.

 

Software Engineers, Computer Programmers, and Information Systems Business Analysts ranked high on the "wish list" of the ICT firms. About half of these new positions would require some undergraduate degree, particularly in Engineering, with the other half requiring at least a Community College Diploma. Project management expertise and certification (e.g. Project Management Institute) are expected for engineering level or Business Analysts positions.  Anecdotaly, local businesses report an extreme need for high-level international marketing expertise as well as "holistic" business expertise to help captain the early stage firms through the propel Accelerator support program.

propel Talent is actively engaged with the human resources personnel of many of our member companies to address the talent shortage that is either being felt or anticipated within our local ICT industry.

 

Current activities of the committee are to raise awareness of our industry amoung our potential talent resources of who we are, what we have to offer, and the depth and breadth of our provincial industry.

 

One of these talent resources is the immigrant community and our partners in Business New Brunswick have recently provided a resource to help in this with the launch of solutionsnb.ca. You can read information on the launch of this service.