Dude, where's my SaskJobs.ca website? Job site's merge with federal job bank draws mixed reactions

Things are starting to look different these days on SaskJobs.ca, and some people don't like it.

The popular job search site maintained by the Saskatchewan government is migrating to the federal government's national online job bank.

Vicki Mowat, the Saskatchewan NDP critic on jobs, says she's received mixed feedback on the site, with some praising its functionality.

But employers have told her the national job bank is "costly and cumbersome," and yet simultaneously limited, she said.

"They've talked to me specifically about the fact that you can't have a free-form text to describe what the job looks like, so they're concerned with being able to find potential applicants that are appropriate for the job that they are advertising," said Mowat.

Jeremy Harrison, the government's minister of export and trade development, said the transition has been in the works for a while.

He said it's the result of Saskatchewan getting money from its labour force agreement with the feds.

"As a part of the new labour market agreement, one of the provisions is that if you are to use LMA funding, you have to sign up to national job bank," he said.

While that doesn't preclude keeping SaskJobs the way it is, that would mean paying for both that site and the province's use of the national job bank from the same piggy bank.

No Saskatchewan jobs have been lost in the change, he added.

"I think employers will get used to it," said Harrison of the site change.

According to the website, as of May 1 all Saskatchewan jobs "will exclusively be posted on the new Saskjobs.ca/National Job Bank."