A Worrying Skills Landscape: First Impression of Canadian Skills Performance from PIAAC Cycle 2

Early analysis of the second cycle of Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), released in December, 2024, offered a somewhat rosy picture for Canada. We ranked in the top 10 of participating countries on all three foundational skills domains – literacy, numeracy, and adaptive problem solving (APS) – and experienced better trends than peers since the first cycle of PIAAC ten years ago. A closer look, however, reveals a more nuanced picture of Canada’s skills landscape with positive results complicated by some worrying developments.

Consider Canada’s performance on literacy. Canada’s average literacy score ranks 8th among participating countries in the second cycle of PIAAC, but we are outperformed considerably by leading countries like Finland, Japan, Sweden and Norway. And while Canada’s literacy score did not fall as much as other countries over the past decade, we did see a decline. Given the rising importance of skills to economic, social and health outcomes, any decline, however small, is cause for concern.

The decline in Canada’s literacy score is especially troubling given that, over the same time frame, educational attainment increased across the country. Given what we know about the relationship between higher education and literacy, Canada should have seen an increase in literacy scores. Instead, like many global peers, we saw declines in average literacy scores even among those with higher education credentials. When combined with declines in literacy scores among people without post-secondary education, there is reason to be somewhat concerned about future skills-driven prosperity and well-being.

In addition to concerns about literacy levels, the most recent PIAAC data confirms a long-standing problem with unequal distribution of skills across the population – and thus concerns about their contribution to economic, social and health inequities. For example, Canadian men continue to outperform women in numeracy skills – by a substantial 16 points difference – despite considerable efforts to close the gap over the past decade. Meanwhile, the literacy gap between young adults (aged 16 to 24) with less-educated parents and those with highly educated parents widened, reinforcing the influence of upbringing and social capital in fostering skills and life opportunities.  And while the gap between high and low skilled adults across all three foundational skills categories was smaller in Canada than in most OECD countries, the overall proportion of high performing adults (levels 4 and 5) remains too low, and the proportion of low performing adults (below level 2) remains too high.

But there is good news. Consider Canada’s performance on numeracy. Our overall numeracy score increased by a substantial 7 points over the past ten years placing Canada 7th among participating countries. This is encouraging in light of the fact that numeracy skills have the largest impact on individual employment outcomes and wage growth – insights that emerged from research that used Cycle 1 PIAAC data.

There is much more to unpack using the second cycle of PIAAC data. While Canada is doing fairly well on some key measures, there is considerable room for improvement to ensure we have the skills needed to drive social and economic progress, and to ensure that skills-related prosperity and well-being is equitably distributed. New PIAAC provides us with a unique opportunity to better understand how skills are developed and how they contribute to individual and social outcomes we want all Canadians to enjoy. 

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.