Dalton McGuinty Recommits to Second Career Program

With Ontario’s provincial election only days away, Premier Dalton McGuinty says his Liberals are ready to re-invest in the wildly successful Second Career program.

Second Career has already helped thousands of Ontario’s laid off workers go back to school to get retrained. Students can potentially get $28,000 in support to cover the cost of tuition, books, living expenses and other expenses to train for a new career.

“These are uncertain economic times and we know from experience that change can come quickly,” said McGuinty. “So, we’ll continue to help workers get the training they need through our flagship retraining program — Second Career.”

McGuinty also said that the Second Career program is ready to fund another 7,000 Ontarians, and help them go back to school to find another career.

“Ontario Liberals stood up with Ontario families during the last recession,” said McGuinty. “Our opponents wanted us to cut families loose, but instead we created this one-of-a-kind long-term retraining program to help laid-off workers get the training and skills needed to re-enter the workforce.”

Second Career, by the numbers:

• Reduced Ontario’s unemployment rate from 9.4 to 7.5 per cent
• 50,000 laid-off workers have taken part in the program
• 93 per cent of students have graduated
• 74 per cent of students found a job within a year of graduating