City of Toronto Offering New Job Opportunities

In an effort to combat the tremendous number of job losses resulting from the current recession in Canada, the City of Toronto is planning to introduce no less than 1300 job openings. In the March 16th, 2009 edition of The Toronto Star, Paul Moloney reports that front-line jobs will be made available through several organizations such as the Toronto Transit Commission, BlackBerry and Chameleon System.

In addition, job positions including welfare caseworkers, private inspectors, tradespeople, tax collectors, lawyers and legal assistants, caretaking, customer service, security, cleaning and maintenance will all be opening up.

According to Moloney’s article, “City of Toronto Hopes To Hire 1,300”, Councillor Shelley Carroll insists that the impact of Toronto’s new hiring spree will not impact taxpayers significantly. She notes that only about 450 of the new workers will be paid through property taxes. In addition, “provincial funding is available for welfare caseworkers…while transit riders pay for bus drivers through the fare box.”

Transportation throughout the city, it seems, will be a source for several employment opportunities. In addition to the 222 new positions being offered by the TTC to expand service, another 271 workers will be needed to design and oversee projects like the Spadina subway extension, the Transit City streetcar network as well as the rehabilitation of bridges and major roads. Also, many of the cleaning, maintenance, repair and security work will be made available at Union Station among some other subway stations.

A city council meeting will be held at the end of the month to determine the budget for wages for these new jobs.