Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl announces the $210-million aboriginal skills and partnership fund in Winnipeg on Friday. (CBC)

The federal government will put $210 million over the next five years into a program designed to connect aboriginal people and jobs.

The new skills and partnership fund will complement the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy, Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl announced in Winnipeg on Friday.

Aboriginal organizations will be able to access money from the skills and partnership fund for projects that focus on employment in new and emerging job fields, with an emphasis on being responsive to workforce demands.

"Employers are starting to once again talk about the need to find those skilled tradespeople," Strahl said in making the announcement. "We can't afford to lose or underutilize the skills and the abilities and the talents of every single person in Canada."

Training people for jobs that already exist is key, said Patricia Hamilton of the Centre for Aboriginal Human Resource Development in Winnipeg, which is among the organizations that deliver aboriginal skills and employment training strategy programming.

The new skills and partnership fund will help build on their success to date, Hamilton said.

The aboriginal skills and employment training strategy (ASETS) is the successor to the aboriginal human resources development strategy, which ended in March. ASETS will focus on training workers for high-demand jobs and building partnerships with the private sector, provinces and territories.