Career planning is the most critical ingredient in developing a nation's primary resource, its workers. A 1988 Gallup Poll showed that 62 percent of U.S. workers had no career goal when they began their first job, and more than 50 percent felt they were in the wrong job. The same results probably could be applied to Canada. Career planning skills are not instinctive. Young people and adults need to be taught basic skills they can use in evaluating their needs, identifying their options, and making good career choices. Job changing is thought to cost business and government in Canada about $7.5 billion in costs and lost wages per year. Lost productivity is no doubt the greatest economic cost of inappropriate career decisions. However, Canadian youth receive little help in making these decisions. Counselors are involved with many other problems besides career planning. A new vision is required, one that sees career planning as a community responsibility, rather than just an educational, or worse, a counselor responsibility. More attention must be paid to the career-related developmental needs of clients across the full spectrum of community service agencies. People must be taught how to locate and process information that has personal relevance. Community goals should be set to reduce school dropout rates, increase productivity of area firms, and increase career awareness. Such programs will ensure brighter futures for the citizens and the communities. (KC)