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Hot Off the Press: New Data on Diversity in Manufacturing
Episode 327th September 2024 • Making it in Ontario • Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing
00:00:00 00:11:04

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In this episode of 'Making it in Ontario,' co-hosts Michelle Samson and Brendan Sweeney share highlights from Trillium’s latest data bulletin focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Ontario's manufacturing sector. A key finding is the inverse relationship between pay and the proportion of women and visible minorities in various industries, with some notable exceptions. The episode delves into the impact of education and immigration patterns on workforce demographics and underscores the necessity for systemic change to include underrepresented groups in trades.

  • 00:18 New to the Podcast: Hot Off the Press Mini Episodes
  • 00:58 Trillium’s Data Bulletin Series on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
  • 01:29 Gender Diversity in Manufacturing
  • 02:25 An Exceptional Industry: Pharmaceutical Product Manufacturing
  • 04:09 New Data Bulletin: Visible Minorities in Manufacturing
  • 04:46 Key Findings and Analysis
  • 07:45 Implications and Future Directions

Highlighted Reports

  • Occupational Diversity and Ontario Manufacturing Data Bulletin trilliummfg.ca/data-bulletin/occupational-diversity-ontario-manufacturing
  • Gender and Ontario’s Manufacturing Workforce trilliummfg.ca/data-bulletin/gender-and-ontarios-manufacturing-workforce

Find Out More about Trillium

About the Making it in Ontario Podcast

Making it in Ontario is your window into what's next in manufacturing. Ontario’s economy depends on manufacturing, but the latest research reveals concerning trends that could undermine the sector’s strength—if we don’t address them. Join us as we talk to CEOs and other leaders at the forefront of the sector about productivity, strategy, talent markets and career opportunities, and the role of manufacturing in a prosperous and sustainable future.

This podcast is an initiative of the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing. It’s hosted by Michelle Samson and produced by Storied Places Media.

Transcripts

Michelle Samson:

Welcome to Making it in Ontario, your window into what's next in

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Ontario's manufacturing sector from the

data driven researchers at the Trillium

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Network for Advanced Manufacturing.

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I'm Michelle Samson.

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Brendan Sweeney: And I'm Brendan Sweeney.

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Michelle Samson: All right.

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Brendan, some eagle eye listeners

might be wondering why this episode

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is a lot shorter than our other ones.

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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah, this season of

Making It in Ontario, and I think future

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seasons, we're going to try something out.

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We're going to have some mini episodes,

some shorter episodes, that really just

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focus in on some hot off the presses

topics, uh, and that are really just

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designed to give a bit of a primer

on some of our reports, some of our

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data bulletins, some of our research.

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Michelle Samson: Yeah and if there's

big news in the manufacturing

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ecosystem, then that might be

the topic of an episode as well.

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So this obviously is

one of those episodes.

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What is hot off the press today?

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Brendan Sweeney: So it's

a new data bulletin.

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These data bulletins are

something that we, uh, had some

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success with in 2022 and 2023.

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And this particular data bulletin

follows a broader program of work at

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the Trillium Network that began in late

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The focus of this program of work

is on DEI, on Diversity, Equity,

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and Inclusion in Manufacturing.

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In the past, we've really had

a specific focus on gender.

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We published our flagship, a landmark

report about gender diversity in

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manufacturing in February 2021.

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Uh, later we published an associated

data bulletin that kind of lines up

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with some of the work that we did there.

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That data bulletin plotted different

manufacturing industries in Ontario

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by compensation, and by the proportion

of women that they employed as a

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proportion of their overall workforce.

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And we found a pretty explicit,

pretty direct relationship, inverse

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relationship: the higher the

pay, the fewer women there were.

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The lower the pay, the more women

there were, with one exception.

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Pause for Michelle to

ask about the exception.

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Michelle Samson: Pause

for dramatic effect.

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What is our one exception?

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Brendan Sweeney: Pharmaceutical

product manufacturing.

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And it was just, I mean, it really you

can see in our data bulletin, you can see

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on the graph just how much it stands out.

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And from there we dug in a bit, we talked

to some companies, we looked at some

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more data, and what we learned was that

the occupational mix was very different.

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in pharmaceutical product manufacturing,

than it was in other industries

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that we were more familiar with,

automotive, aerospace, machinery.

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Big difference in pharmaceutical

product manufacturing is that there

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are lots of scientists, chemists,

biochemists, very few tradespeople.

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And what the reality of that is,

in Ontario, people with science

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degrees are much more likely to

be women than people with a trade.

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And that's just the

reality of the situation.

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So on the one hand, you

know, industry is important.

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The industry you work in is important.

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And as a determinant of, you know,

what the, the gender mix will be.

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But it's important because of

the occupational mix in there.

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and so we actually have another data

bulletin, one of our first, that

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illustrates this, the occupational

mix in different industries.

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And it really does show that

within manufacturing, individual

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industries are, are themselves quite

distinct in their occupational mix.

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Some rely, like pharmaceutical, rely on

a lot of scientists to get the work done.

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Others, like, metalworking

rely on a lot of tradespeople.

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And then everything in between.

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Michelle Samson: That is such

an important perspective or a

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different way of looking at it.

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So what about this new data bulletin?

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What's going to be covered here?

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Brendan Sweeney: This one focuses on

some, uh, new to the last census data.

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And it's specifically focused

on race and ethnicity.

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And so we organized the data similar to

the way we organized gender before, but

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it focuses specifically on the proportion

of persons in any given manufacturing

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industry in Ontario who identified

on the census as a visible minority.

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And then we kind of plot and

examine those data by compensation

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and by specific industries.

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Michelle Samson: Very interesting.

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So what does the data show?

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Brendan Sweeney: Interestingly enough,

it shows almost the exact same curve,

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not the exact same, but almost the

exact same curve as our analysis of

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gender by industry by compensation.

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Higher paying industries within

manufacturing tend to employ fewer persons

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who identify as visible minorities.

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Lower paying industries tend to,

employ a greater proportion of persons

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who identify as visible minorities.

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There were a couple more exceptions

or outliers in this case, though.

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And that was really interesting.

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Pharmaceuticals.

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Pharmaceuticals on, on that diversity

angle, just check out really, really well.

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Pharmaceuticals also checks out on

a lot of other really interesting

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stuff: R&D, investment, pay.

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but aerospace, which didn't check out

too well on the gender front, checked

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out really well on the pay compensation.

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But aerospace is a high paying

industry that employs an above

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average proportion of persons who

identify as a visible minority.

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And electronics did, quite well too.

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I mean, what's left of our electronics

industry in Ontario, post Nortel,

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post BlackBerry, um, a lot of

that's really high end stuff.

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And those companies pay well, for the

most part, and employ a relatively high

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proportion of persons who identified

on the census as visible minorities.

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Michelle Samson: Interesting.

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So was it education again

that made the difference?

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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah, occupation

and education, definitely that

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was one of the variables we ran.

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We've got a table in the most recent

data bulletin that shows a bit of that.

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And industries with a higher proportion

of university graduates also have a higher

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proportion of visible minority employees.

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Conversely, industries with a higher

proportion of trades have lower

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proportions of visible minority employees.

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Michelle Samson: In the case of

visible minorities, the historical

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patterns of immigration make

a difference here too, right?

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Brendan Sweeney: Big time, and if we

look at the recent historical pattern

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of immigration, or today's pattern

of immigration, relative newcomers to

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Canada, people who are joining us, you

know, today, yesterday, a year ago,

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tend to be very well educated, tend to

have university education, or are coming

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here to get a university education

and then staying here via a permanent

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resident or path to citizenship program.

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And conversely, you know,

historically, where have people

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who with a trade come from?

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From Britain and Central Europe.

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So that really does kind of

flavor the demographics of the

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workforce and, by education, by

occupation, and continues to do so.

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Michelle Samson: Really

fascinating findings.

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So let's bring it together.

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What does it all mean?

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Brendan Sweeney: Okay, I think there's

three things that are really important

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to know here that, you know, one

is demographics change in Ontario.

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As more people from all over the

world, more university educated

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people come here, we might need to

think about focusing on manufacturing

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investments that fit the workforce

rather than trying to fit the workforce

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into our manufacturing investments.

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So the two industries that really

jump out there: Pharmaceutical

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Product Manufacturing and Aerospace.

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Electronics are great.

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I don't know how much electronics

investment there is on the horizon, but

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we do know that pharmaceutical products

or life sciences generally, uh, and

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aerospace are really good fits for our,

uh, existing and evolving workforce.

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Two, and this is one of the more

provocative things that I'm on about

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these days, but something really

needs to give with the trades.

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you know, we understand there are a lot

of opportunities in the trades and that

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they pay well, but I think we really need

to ask ourselves, well, why are women,

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why are other under represented groups

just largely absent and continue to be

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largely absent from the trades, at least

in manufacturing, and I think this is

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a broader systemic problem, and things

won't change until the system changes.

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Michelle Samson: Absolutely.

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And culture is such an

important part of that, right?

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It's shifting, not just offering

the opportunity, but shifting

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the culture to make people feel

welcome in these environments.

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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah and shifting

broader institutions like apprenticeship

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systems that tend to exclude.

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women and a lot of underrepresented

groups or, really don't

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afford opportunities there.

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And then, um, third, all the data, you

know, we let data point us to conclusions,

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and my conclusion, this has been pretty

consistent over the past few years,

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you know, that pharmaceutical product

manufacturing, especially biopharma, is

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one of the most productive segments of

manufacturing and scores well on just

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about every indicator that we want,

whether it's R&D spending, whether it's

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earnings, the pharmaceutical product

manufacturing industry pays really, really

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well, and as this shows on every element

of diversity that we could come up with.

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aerospace is doing pretty well too.

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but These industries are both good

evidence that if you pay attention to

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diversity, if you embrace diversity,

it's a good business practice.

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Michelle Samson: Love that.

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Ending on a high note.

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We've covered the highlights of this

report, but I'm sure there's more details.

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Where can they find the data bulletin?

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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah, in the kind of

research and publication section of

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our website, uh, we will also probably

have kind of some blog post links to it

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throughout the website and we will be

telling people about it via LinkedIn.

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Michelle Samson: And as always,

you can find it in the show notes.

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We'll definitely put a link in there.

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Brendan Sweeney: You bet.

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Happy friday.

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Michelle Samson: Making it in Ontario

is an initiative of the Trillium

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Network for Advanced Manufacturing.

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It is produced by Storied Places Media.

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