White Paper

In Canada, as in many industrialized countries, a combination of factors, including stronger productivity growth among goods than services producers, competition from low-cost foreign producers of clothing, textiles and other goods and strong growth in demand for intermediate and final services, have led, over time, to a major change in the structure of the economy. The shift of labour from manufacturing to services has followed a more gradual trend in Canada than the United Kingdom, the United States and many other OECD countries and, over the 1976–79 to 2001–05 period examined in the paper, output in Canadian manufacturing still increased at a significant pace – suggesting the Canadian economy does not meet the more restrictive criteria of de-industrialization. The structural changes that have taken place and continue to occur, however, have potentially important implications for the nature of work and for productivity and income growth in the Canadian economy.

One of the strengths of this study is that it connected students, faculty, learning professionals and employers in uncovering more about the role of ePortfolios in postsecondary education. The results of this research along with the literature review continue to emphasize the importance and value of ePortfolios as a tool for learning, assessment and employment. Further research to examine how ePortfolios can be used to achieve essential skills development, assessment and employability will almost certainly take place. Colleges and universities have an opportunity, through their program advisory committees and industry partners, to engage in a conversation with employers to learn more about employers’ values, needs and requirements.

The “future of work” is here, so businesses, governments and educational institutions must lay the foundation for Canada’s future workforce.

To compete in an interconnected and global marketplace, Canadian companies require an increasingly strong and skilled workforce. However, a lack of comprehensive labour market data, particularly on employment trends and skill requirements, makes it difficult to identify and analyze the current state of the Canadian job market. This report, based on a survey of 90 leading Canadian employers, examines recent and future hiring trends, demographic changes, the job market for young Canadians and the skills and attributes that large Canadian firms are looking for when they recruit employees.

Connectivity is the foundation for the digital economy. The Internet has already connected more than three billion users across the globe and about 14 billion devices.

This thesis examines the Four-Day Workweek (4DW) as a policy option for Australia. Like most advanced capitalist countries, Australia has experienced little reduction in average working hours in the postwar era despite decades of cumulative productivity gains and social surveys that report a significant number of Australians would like to work fewer hours. This thesis highlights some of the reasons for this apparent anomaly as part of its focus on the nature, purpose and extent of work. The thesis draws on the diverse traditions of political economy, including Marxian, feminist, Keynesian and institutional perspectives, as well as labour history and organisation studies. In particular, the contributions of Gorz (1999) and Weeks (2011) to the literature on work futures inform the arguments developed in this thesis. The body of the thesis is divided into three parts that focus, respectively, on the theoretical, historical and institutional levels of analysis. Part I canvasses the ‘utopian’ and ‘pragmatic’ nodes of argument in relation to change in the nature and extent of work. It highlights the obstacles to change within capitalism and also the centrality of politics in attempts to circumvent these barriers. The 4DW as a policy option for Australia is situated within this general framework. Part II focuses on the empirical evidence regarding the 4DW in the US in the 1970s and during the Great Recession. Part III centres on a case study of one Australian organisation that gives the option of a 4DW to its staff. On the basis of the evidence presented in this thesis, it is argued that the 4DW could form part of a new politics of shorter hours and chosen time in Australia. It is further argued that this reform has a greater chance of lasting success if the 4DW is adopted as a goal of the trade union movement as part of an offensive agenda.

The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of Jamaican Expatriate Female C-suite executives in the diaspora of working in Multi-national Companies (MNCs). A further question to be answered was the meaning they derived from their experiences. With little research emerging from the Caribbean about this elite class of professionals, the research intended to expose the challenges faced as an outsider in unfamiliar spaces. Research on other groups have exposed limiting factors to women’s progress in MNCs. Critical Race Theory with a brief mention of Critical Human Geography and Intersectionality are lens applied to critique the experiences of the eight participants. This research mined the extant literature that looked at navigating barriers, disrupting stereotypes and gender diversity in international careers. The method of inquiry applied to this research was existential phenomenology and its utility in getting to the essence of the women’s lived experiences highlighted the glass-border phenomenon. In reflecting on the outcome, this research opens the door for scholars and practitioners alike, to critically assess the expatriate literature and to probe further the complex relationship between international business, the movement of black talent across geographic and culturally diverse boundaries and the challenges encountered. The results of this study illuminated several themes from the participants textural descriptions: (1) Moving from Invisible to Visible—Disrupting Bias; (2) Who am I?—Identity, Gender and Heritage; (3) Renegotiating the Rules of Engagement paired with Re-branding the Role and Authority of Women in Business; (4) Male Sponsorship Leads to Acceptance; (5) Improving Skill and Competency Capital for New Roles; (6) Building and Maintaining Bridges—Network Management.

This article in the Economic Insights series examines economic well-being of millennials by comparing their household balance sheets to those of previous generations of young Canadians. Measured at the same point in their life course, millennials were relatively better off than young Gen-Xers in terms of net worth, but also had higher debt levels. Higher values for principal residences and mortgage debt mainly explain these patterns. Financial outcomes varied considerably among millennial households. Home ownership, living in Toronto or Vancouver, and having a higher education were three factors associated with higher net worth

This report presents the first comprehensive gender analysis of the potential impact of technological change on women and men’s employment in the United States, with an emphasis on the likely effects for women, given the jobs where women predominantly work and given the disproportionate share of home and family care done by women. It continues IWPR’s gender analysis of the labor market and the divergent experiences of women of different races and ethnicities. The report also reviews gender specific trends in the gig economy and contingent work arrangements, analyzes the earnings gains of working with computers and digital content for women compared with men, assesses the recent progress of women and people of color in the three largest technical occupations, and discusses the opportunities new technologies create for balancing work and family as well as the new risks. The report ends with policy recommendations for improving the outcomes of this wave of technological change, sometimes called the fourth industrial revolution. An executive summary of this report (IWPR #C477), which highlights the study’s main findings and summarizes the policy recommendations, is available on IWPR.org. This research was made possible by JPMorgan Chase Foundation through New Skills at Work. The five-year, $350 million initiative focuses on accelerating demand-driven skills training, creating more opportunities for workers to obtain well-paying jobs, and strengthening workforce systems to better serve jobseekers and employers. The views and opinions expressed in the report are those of the authors from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of JPMorgan Chase & Co. or its affiliates or the views or opinions of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.