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News Release

Future Skills Centre invests to turn PIAAC skills data into Canadian workforce insights

May 26, 2026 – Canada’s productivity and prosperity depend in part on how effectively the country uses the skills of its workforce. To strengthen this foundation, the Future Skills Centre (FSC), funded by the Government of Canada’s Future Skills Program, announced the selection of 10 research projects to tap into the potential of the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) dataset. 

This initiative aims to turn complex data on adult skills into actionable insights, equipping policymakers and workforce leaders across Canada with timely evidence needed to navigate ongoing labour market challenges. 

The 10 selected projects explore diverse aspects of Canada’s skills landscape and together address critical gaps in evidence on Canada’s skills performance, strengthen national data infrastructure and capacity, and mobilize findings in ways that will inform policies, programs, and practices.  

By applying advanced data analytics, the research will uncover how specific skill profiles interact with long-term wages, health, and economic stability. Other projects will investigate the challenge of skills mismatches and overqualification Canada’s productivity gap. 

“Canada is facing a defining moment for our prosperity and the skills in our workforce are a key building block. While we boast strong foundational skills, we may be leaving billions of dollars on the table because we aren’t effectively matching those skills to the jobs of the future. By maximizing this once-in-a-decade dataset and supporting a network of researchers investigating these critical questions, we are identifying the specific levers that will allow us to close the productivity gap, boost wages, and ensure our economy is resilient by design in the face of rapid disruption.”

– Noel Baldwin, Executive Director, Future Skills Centre

Quick Facts 

  • The OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) is an international survey of adults, including nearly 12,000 in Canada, that measures adult proficiency in three primary skills for work and daily life: literacy; numeracy; and adaptive problem solving. Two cycles of data have been published offering insights into how skills proficiency has changed over time.  
  • PIAAC data, released at the end of 2024, provides an opportunity to improve Canada’s understanding of relationships among skills, productivity, prosperity and well-being, and to use that knowledge to design better policies and programs. 
  • In 2025, FSC launched an open call for proposals aimed at leveraging newly released PIAAC data on adult skills to inform practical insights for policymakers and workforce leaders across Canada.
  • Canada faces challenges in skills performance and achieving equitable outcomes. Proficiency in literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem-solving skills has remained too low and stagnant over time. 

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About FSC

The Future Skills Centre (FSC) is a forward-thinking centre for research and collaboration dedicated to driving innovation in skills development so that everyone in Canada can be prepared for the future of work. We partner with policymakers, researchers, practitioners, employers and labour groups, and post-secondary institutions to solve pressing labour market challenges and ensure that everyone can benefit from relevant lifelong learning opportunities. We are founded by a consortium whose members are Toronto Metropolitan University, Blueprint, and Signal49 Research, and are funded by the Government of Canada’s Future Skills Program.

Media Contact

Annamaria Nunziata
Communications Manager
Future Skills Centre
communications@fsc-ccf.ca
647-242-6156

Projects at a glance:

Lead organization: Academica Group

 

Academica Group’s project will re-examine the economic returns associated with various post-secondary education fields of study by incorporating the PIAAC direct skill measurements. This project overcomes certain limitations to recent research: the lack of a non-PSE reference group and unmeasured competencies like numeracy, which can bias estimates of the returns to credentials in different fields. The research will examine if skill proficiencies change traditionally observed differences in labor market outcomes between various fields and relative to high school graduates across the OECD.

Lead organization: C.D. Howe Institute

 

The C.D. Howe Institute’s project will investigate the skill gaps between immigrants and Canadian-born adults to determine how these differences impact employment outcomes, moving beyond traditional educational credentials to analyze directly measured competencies. This project aims to understand if employment disparities stem from actual skill deficits or structural barriers to skill recognition and utilization in the Canadian labor market. The research will explore whether immigrants with similar measured skills experience different patterns of skill use, while examining correlation of elements such as years since arrival, language spoken at home, etc. The study will identify where and for whom these gaps are most pronounced across various occupations and stages of settlement.

Lead organization: McMaster University 

 

Research team from McMaster University will investigate how foundational information processing skills like literacy, numeracy, and adaptive problem-solving translate into non-economic benefits such as civic engagement, social trust, and personal well-being for Canadians. This project hopes to explain why certain demographics experience lower levels of political efficacy and health outcomes. The research will look at the effects of skill proficiency on social returns, evaluate temporal and geographic changes across provinces, and compare Canada’s standing internationally. The research will examine how factors like Indigenous identity, immigration status, and gender facilitate or impede social returns.

Lead organization: University of Toronto (Faculty of Information) 

 

The Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto’s project will examine how Canadian adult foundational skills have evolved and how these changes intersect with regional productivity and social inclusion. This project addresses the limitation of single-point international rankings by investigating the specific mechanisms, such as workplace practices, job quality, and adult education, that drive skill development and utilization across different jurisdictions. The research aims to identify best-practice policy interventions that effectively combine skill growth with economic output.

Lead organization: Canadian SHIELD Institute 

 

The Canadian SHIELD Institute for Public Policy will investigate the high prevalence of overqualification in the Canadian workforce. This project addresses the concern that underutilizing a highly skilled workforce leads to de-skilling, lower job satisfaction, and stagnant labor productivity. The research aims to quantify the extent of overqualification across demographic groups and industries while examining its direct correlation with personal outcomes like health and income, as well as broader economic performance. This study will provide insights into how under-serving workers with “bad jobs” impacts Canada’s national productivity.

Lead organization: RISC Foundation

 

The RISC Foundation’s project will investigate why Canada’s high levels of postsecondary educational attainment have not yielded proportional labor productivity growth, specifically focusing on the alignment between an individual’s field of study and the skills required in their workplace. This project addresses the issue of skill misalignment, including underutilization and skill strain, and explores how these patterns vary across regions and demographic groups. By identifying where skill deployment is most inefficient, the study aims to provide actionable evidence to support better synchronization of education with labor market demands.

Lead organization: McGill University (Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning)

 

A research team from the Economics department at McGill University will investigate the prevalence and economic consequences of multidimensional skill mismatch in the Canadian labor market. This project examines the productivity and earnings losses that emerge when worker abilities diverge from occupational demands, including wage penalties at the individual level and matching inefficiencies in the aggregate. The research seeks to document the current extent of mismatch, analyze how it has evolved over the past decade across different demographic groups, and quantify its costs at both the individual and industry levels. The project aims to provide evidence to support the alignment of the skills of the Canadian workforce with the evolving demands of the economy. 

Lead organization: Social Research and Demonstration Corporation

 

This project partner will provide subject matter expertise for methodological support to funded research teams, and will lead the organization of a knowledge-sharing seminar in Fall 2026 co-hosted with FSC.  SRDC will also produce two research papers: one analyzes the evolving landscape of Canadian adult training and its associated barriers across demographic groups. The other develops new methods to align PIAAC data with Canada’s Skills for Success framework in order to better measure how social-emotional skills drive labour market outcomes. 

Lead organization: University of New Brunswick (Pond-Deshpande Centre) 

 

The Pond-Deshpande Centre at the University of New Brunswick will investigate the critical decline in literacy and numeracy outcomes in Atlantic Canada. This project addresses whether these adolescent skill deficits persist into adulthood and examines their direct correlation with labour-market disengagement, focusing on the evolution and prevalence of “Not in Education, Employment, or Training” (NEET) statuses across the region. The research will distinguish between skill-based and structural barriers and hopes to provide insights to forecast future NEET risks.

Lead organization: University of Alberta

 

The University of Alberta project will address a vulnerability in the Canadian workforce: 22% of adults score at or below the lowest proficiency level in Adaptive Problem Solving (APS). This project investigates the gap between current skill levels and the demands of a volatile, AI-powered labor market, where traditional literacy and numeracy are no longer sufficient to navigate complex, dynamic challenges. The research seeks to identify distinct APS skill groups within Canada, compare these profiles internationally with top-performing nations, and evaluate how APS proficiency predicts economic stability, well-being, and social inclusion. By pinpointing the most effective training and workplace supports, the project aims to deliver insights to support strengthening the problem-solving capacity among at-risk workers.