The ‘missing work’ of coordination in Canada’s skills ecosystem

Solving Canada’s productivity crisis requires funding systems, not just projects

Canada is intent on building things: more roads, pipelines, homes, and large infrastructure projects. To do so, we require coordinated investments from government and private capital in critical drivers such as technology and infrastructure, but also – critically –  in people. Unfortunately there are significant skill gaps and talent shortages across Canada, and we don’t have the workforce in place to meet our national ambitions. We know that skills development and training are part of the solutions, but it’s also going to require the messy work of coordination — pulling levers here, aligning actors there, and with an overall focus on long-term goals rather than short-term targets. 

Over the past seven years, the Future Skills Centre (FSC) has invested in more than 425 projects. By leveraging insights from pilots, research and innovation, we aim to drive critical outcomes like a deeper understanding of the shifting skills requirements and a closer alignment between labour, supply and demand. This project portfolio gives us a rare vantage point: not only into what individual projects achieved, but also into how the ecosystem as a whole is responding to Canada’s labour market challenges.

Recently, FSC partnered with the Behavioural Insights Team to analyze nearly 900 project proposals submitted across multiple funding calls in late 2024. Taken together, these proposals offer a candid snapshot of how the sector defines problems, what solutions it gravitates toward, and where systems change stalls.

Two patterns stand out.

First, skills organizations want to address critical skills gaps, focusing on equity, technology, and sector-specific skills issues — particularly in areas like AI adoption, the green economy, healthcare, and the skilled trades. These priorities reflect the focus areas of our funding calls – honing in on real and urgent needs across Canada. But most of the proposals defaulted to technology, especially AI, as somewhat of a silver bullet or magic wand – a quick way to ostensibly turbocharge impact and achieve transformation. What wasn’t proposed? Too few organizations wanted to dig into issues that affected their organizations and target populations, but weren’t easily solved or changed in the duration of a project. We noted very few (if any) proposals that sought to transform management practices, improve system navigation in a disjointed skills ecosystem, or even address the critical (but less cool or marketable) area of foundational skills like literacy or numeracy.   

Second, we found tension between ambition and implementation. More systemic, transformative ideas —new models of skills assessment, sectoral coordination, or labour market infrastructure— often lacked realistic pathways to scale or sustain beyond the funding period.  Organizations also struggled to define impact for these kinds of interventions in ways that resonate with public funders, who gravitate to easily-understood metrics, such as number of people trained.  Meanwhile, projects designed for rapid implementation tended to rely on familiar program models that are easier to deliver but unlikely to shift system dynamics. Some of these tensions are  undoubtedly tied to the conditions these funding calls were under —for projects less than a year in duration— but there were nevertheless also few proposals to posit a first step towards a longer, more systemic initiative. Instead, most proposals focused on incremental activities that could be accomplished within the funding timeline, with metrics of success that hyper-focused on short term results for individuals. 

These findings reinforce a critical blind spot: real change takes both intentional design and commitment. It requires great ideas, thinking of both the big picture and the little details, sufficient time, investments, and the license to tackle complex problems.

We see this clearly in FSC’s own experience. The projects with the strongest evidence, influence, and scale are not always the ones that moved directly from idea to impact. Instead, seven years into our work, we see the projects which are having considerable impact have benefited from above-average leadership, sufficient time, and data & evaluation support that promotes reflection, iteration, and adaptation. Big challenges are rarely solved easily and without some setbacks.  For example, Skillplan sought to diversify the range of people considering a career in the skilled trades through a virtual recruitment platform – a herculean effort that involved working with dozens of building trades organizations across the country. While these success stories may sound smooth and linear, any founder will tell you that the journey is a lot bumpier than it seems from the outside.  The skills ecosystem is no different – there are frequent challenges and setbacks and adaptations along the way. Emerging from these challenges with a clearer sense of impact, a stabilized model or approach to creating change, and a winning solution to workforce challenges is no simple feat. The partners who make it through this gauntlet often cite the unique set of supports – technical assistance, research and evaluation, knowledge mobilization, and investment dollars, that FSC provided as critical to that success. Regrettably, there are simply too few opportunities in Canada’s skills ecosystem to do this well.

We’ve also determined that intermediaries matter more than ever.

Intermediaries are honest brokers trusted by both supply side actors (i.e. training providers, universities, colleges, etc) and demand side actors (employers, unions, sectoral associations). Good intermediaries are the interface between these groups, mediating between the incentives each labour market body responds to. They mobilize evidence, connect actors across silos, and walk alongside implementers over time all while keeping larger goals in sight. Unfortunately, intermediaries are rare in Canada, as most funding goes directly to delivery organizations (i.e. delivering training, with a small sprinkle of employer engagement), rather than the systemic work of labour market coordination. For example, we funded Calgary Economic Development on an initiative to retrain midcareer workers to meet growing labour demands in the technology sector. As an intermediary, Calgary Economic Development effectively mediated between local employers (demand) and local post-secondary institutions (supply). Unfortunately, our present skills systems prioritize implementation over coordination, leaving little space or incentive for intermediaries to drive the type of sectoral and regional workforce planning that Canada’s national projects demand. 

In positive news, there is a growing awareness that large scale coordination and collaboration will be essential to meeting our national ambitions. The Workforce Alliances and the Sectoral Workforce Investment Fund from Employment and Social Development Canada are a good start in the right direction towards ensuring that Canada has the right skills, in the right place, at the right time. Throughout our recent engagements, FSC is frequently hearing that the success for Workforce Alliances will depend on proactive, cross-industry coordination to bridge the gap between declining sectors and emerging areas of high demand. Rather than viewing labour shifts in isolation, these alliances must develop creative, agile solutions that facilitate both occupational and geographic mobility, ensuring workers can transition effectively into the industries of the future. These are not goals that can be met with short-term, project-based commitments for training outputs or stand-alone programs. Instead, the Workforce Alliances have an opportunity to define the connective tissue across a whole ecosystem of actors – both labour supply and labour demand – that will support workers and employers in the months and years to come. 

As Canada faces mounting pressure to build — faster and more equitably — we need longer-term strategies and investments in skills and training and increased support for intermediaries doing the important work of coordinating actors to achieve shared goals. 

Tricia Williams is the Director of Research, Evaluation and Knowledge Mobilization at the Future Skills Centre. Laura McDonough is the Associate Director of Knowledge Mobilization and Insights at the Future Skills Centre. 

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint, official policy or position of the Future Skills Centre or any of its staff members or consortium partners.