About Second Career
If you qualify for Second Career, you can get new skills — those needed for jobs in demand now — and financial support. You can apply for up to $28,000 for costs including:
- Tuition
- Books
- Manuals, workbooks or other instructional costs
- Transportation
- Basic living allowance (maximum $410 per week)
- Child care
How You Can Qualify for Second Career
As a start, you qualify for Second Career when:
- You have been laid off and have not been working.
- You have been laid off and are working a temporary job just to cover costs.
If you are receiving Employment Insurance (EI), or have in the past, you can still apply.
When preparing your application, you also have to show:
- How long you have been unemployed, or working your temporary job, and looking for work.
- Places you have applied and positions you have applied for (e.g. cover letters, CV and responses from potential employers).
- What level of education you reached.
- Where you worked before, for how long and what skills you needed for that work.
- What skills you want to get and where you can get trained in them.
- Information showing the skills and job you want to train for are in demand.
What You Pay Into Second Career
When you apply to Second Career, you have to show the costs to be covered during training. You may have to pay part of these costs yourself. The amount you’ll have to pay is based on several things, starting with your gross (before tax) household income.
Timelines
A typical application process may take between 2 – 4 months. Times vary due to:
- How quickly applicants completed the required documents.
- How complete the documents are.
Please Note: Once we, the Employment Ontario service provider, have a completed application, free of omissions/errors, decisions from the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development may take upwards of 4 weeks depending on application volumes at the time. We recommend that the start date of the course you are looking to take is between 6-8 weeks away from the time you submit the complete application to us. Please see below regarding how to apply.
*Please be advised that you cannot start your training prior to being approved, as doing so will render you ineligible for Second Career.
Second Career Manufacturing Sector Initiative
As of April 1st, 2020, Second Career introduced the Second Career Manufacturing Sector Initiative. If you were laid off from a manufacturing sector job after January 1st, 2019 and meet all other Second Career criteria above, it may be easier for you to qualify for funding and return to school.
To inquire further, please contact the Employment Centre that is closest to you.
Applying to Second Career
Any of our 5 full-suite Employment Centres can assist you with your application. Our staff are trained to help you decide if this program is right for you. If it is, we will help you gather the information needed for your application, and help you to complete the process.
To get started, please contact the Employment Centre that is closest to you.
This Employment Ontario program is funded in part by the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario and through the Canada-Ontario Job Fund Agreement.