White Paper

WES conducted a survey-based study to examine predictors of skilled immigrants’ career success. We examined the demographic characteristics of skilled immigrants as well as their experience and education, and studied how these factors affect their labour market outcomes. We looked at: Demographic characteristics, prior education, sector, years of experience, education level, and more The extent to which employed respondents are doing work that is broadly commensurate with their previous education and experience The report also includes the implications of these findings and identifies evidence gaps that require further research.

As the types of skills needed in the labour market change rapidly, individual workers will have to engage in life-long learning if they are to achieve fulfilling and rewarding careers. For companies, reskilling and upskilling strategies will be critical if they are to find the talent they need and to contribute to socially responsible approaches to the future of work. For policy-makers, reskilling and retraining the existing workforce are essential levers to fuel future economic growth, enhance societal resilience in the face of technological change and pave the way for future-ready education systems for the next generation of workers. Yet while there has been much forecasting on transformations in labour markets, few practical approaches exist to identifying reskilling and job transition opportunities. Towards a Reskilling Revolution: A Future of Jobs for All provides a valuable new tool that will help individual workers, companies, and governments to prioritize their actions and investments. Using big data analytics of online job postings, the methodology in this report demonstrates the power of a data-driven approach to discover reskilling pathways and job transition opportunities. The methodology can be applied to a variety of taxonomies of job requirements and sources of data

Continuous learning lies at the heart of thriving in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The skills required for most jobs are evolving rapidly but our adult education and training systems are lagging behind. While 35% of the skills demanded for jobs across industries will change by 2020, at least 1 in 4 workers in OECD countries is already reporting a skills mismatch with regards to the skills demanded by their current jobs. Thus, enabling and empowering workers to transform and update their skills is a key concern for businesses and societies across the globe. In order to create a robust and inclusive adult education and training system, leaders from across business, government and civil society need to start laying a common foundation through strategic and coordinated action. This White Paper lays out key pathways for change and illustrates successful examples of implementation to inspire broad-based transformation. It is the outcome of a Dialogue Series in the World Economic Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Education, Gender and Work, drawing upon submissions by leaders and experts who engaged in the dialogue, as well as the latest thinking from international organizations, think tanks, businesses and other stakeholders.

As the Fourth Industrial Revolution impacts skills, tasks and jobs, there is growing concern that both job displacement and talent shortages will impact business dynamism and societal cohesion. A proactive and strategic effort is needed on the part of all relevant stakeholders to manage reskilling and upskilling to mitigate against both job losses and talent shortages. Through the Preparing for the Future of Work project, the World Economic Forum provides a platform for designing and implementing intra-industry collaboration on the future of work, working closely with the public sector, unions and educators. The output of the project’s first phase of work, Towards a Reskilling Revolution: A Future of Jobs for All, highlighted an innovative method to identify viable and desirable job transition pathways for disrupted workers. This second report, Towards a Reskilling Revolution: Industry-Led Action for the Future of Work extends our previous research to assess the business case for reskilling and establish its magnitude for different stakeholders. It also outlines a roadmap for selected industries to address specific challenges and opportunities related to the transformation of their workforce.

This Report seeks to understand the current and future impact of key disruptions on employment levels, skill sets and recruitment patterns in different industries and countries. It does so by asking the Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) of today's largest employers to imagine how jobs in their industry will change up to the year 2020-- far enough into the future for many of today's expected trends and disruptions to have begun taking hold, yet close enough to consider adaptive action today, rather than merely speculate on future risks and opportunities. While only a minority of the world's global workforce of more than three billion people is directly employed by large and emerging multinational employers, these companies often act as anchors for smaller firms and local entrepreneurship ecosystems. Therefore, in addition to their own significant share of employment, workforce-planning decisions by these firms have the potential to transform local labour markets through indirect employment and by setting the pace for changing skills and occupational requirements. This Report aims to serve as a call to action. While the implications of current disruptions to business models for jobs are far-reaching, even daunting, rapid adjustment to the new reality and its opportunities is possible, provided there is concerted effort by all stakeholders. By evaluating the future labour market from the perspective of some of the world's largest employers we hope to improve the current stock of knowledge around anticipated skills needs, recruitment patterns and occupational requirements. Furthermore, it is our hope that this knowledge can incentivize and enhance partnerships between governments, educators, training providers, workers and employers in order to better manage the transformative impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on employment, skills and education.

The Essential Adult Skills Initiative (EASI) is an ambitious, large-scale research project undertaken by HEQCO and 20 postsecondary partners, with funding provided by the federal and provincial governments. EASI was designed to measure the literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills of incoming and graduating college and university students, and to evaluate the feasibility of administering assessments on a large scale in Ontario's postsecondary sector. In this respect, EASI represents an important first step toward the measurement of learning gain -- the degree to which students' skills change over the course of their program of study -- across multiple postsecondary institutions.EASI's central research questions are as follows: 1. Is the Education and Skills Online assessment a suitable measure of postsecondary students' literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills? 2. Are there observable differences between incoming and graduating students' literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills? 3. What are the practical implications of implementing a project like EASI in a postsecondary institution? How feasible is it to scale up this project to a provincial or national level?

One of the first major attempts to measure employment-related skills in university and college students on a large scale shows that students are experiencing some gains in literacy, numeracy and critical-thinking scores over the course of their undergraduate studies. Yet, one in four graduating students scored below adequate in measures of literacy or numeracy, and less than a third scored at superior levels, according to findings by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). HEQCO completed two large-scale trials involving more than 7,500 students at 20 Ontario universities and colleges to measure literacy, numeracy and critical-thinking skills in entering and graduating students. The results of the trials are contained in the report On Test: Skills, Summary of Findings from HEQCO’s Skills Assessment Pilot Studies. The first trial, the Essential Adult Skills Initiative (EASI), began in 2016. It administered the Education and Skills Online (ESO), an assessment widely used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that measures literacy, numeracy and problem-solving abilities of adults using everyday scenarios. More than 4,600 first- and final-year students participated in the pilot. The second trial, the Postsecondary and Workplace Skills (PAWS) project, used the HEIghten Critical Thinking assessment, a test that is designed to evaluate students’ ability to analyze evidence, understand implications and consequences, and develop valid arguments. More than 2,900 students at two institutions participated in the study, which was conducted by the Education Policy Research Initiative at the University of Ottawa in partnership with HEQCO. Together, the two trials aim to get at the heart of the ongoing debate over the skills gap among postsecondary graduates. They also aim to encourage postsecondary institutions to teach, measure and credential skills that are highly sought by employers and the labour market rather than discipline-specific content alone. Non-disciplinary skills are becoming increasingly important in today’s economic climate where many graduates will end up not working in their field of study, and where they can expect to hold several jobs over the span of their careers, argue the authors, Harvey P. Weingarten and Martin Hicks. Even graduates who stay with one employer may find their jobs rapidly evolving. “For these workers, non-disciplinary skills matter just as much and often more so than discipline-specific skills,” they write. “For mid-career workers whose jobs may disappear, the key to successful and speedy re-entry into the labour market is a strong foundation of transferable skills that will help them pivot into a new work environment,” they add. The results of the EASI trial show that final-year students had somewhat higher scores in literacy and numeracy than their first-year counterparts, although there was considerable variation among programs. About 25% of participating students scored at ESO Levels 1 and 2, 45% scored at Level 3 — the minimum required for graduates to perform well in today’s work world — and 25% to 30% scored at Level 4/5, the highest level achievable. The results of the PAWS trial indicated little difference between the test scores of incoming and graduating students in critical-thinking abilities, although it too showed considerable variation among programs. In the second phase of the study, currently underway, researchers will link students’ HEIghten test scores and academic performance with their income tax data to assess the impact that critical thinking has on labour market outcomes. The trials conducted by HEQCO and its partners demonstrate that large-scale testing of employment-related skills across multiple institutions is feasible, Weingarten and Hicks conclude. Based on the findings, HEQCO recommends that such assessments be implemented across all institutions and involve all students, rather than just a sample, and that they be integrated into program requirements.

Persons in all immigration categories and from a wide range of countries establish businesses in Canada. Through investments and business formation, immigrants have become a major source of job creation in this country, and they have higher levels of self-employment than their Canadian-born counterparts. Yet starting a business is challenging, and failure rates are high, both for immigrants and the Canadian-born. As this country increasingly relies on immigration for labour force and population growth, and as almost all new jobs are created by small businesses, it is important to learn more about immigrant businesses and how to help them thrive. To this end, the Winning Strategies for Immigrant Entrepreneurship project (œWise5 for short) built on a partnership of local Workforce Planning Boards in five communities: Hamilton, London, Niagara Region, Windsor, and Waterloo Region including Guelph. To learn about experiences of immigrants in business, we interviewed more than 100 individuals in these communities, including immigrant entrepreneurs, service providers and other persons with knowledge of immigration and business. This report builds on findings from these interviews, from relevant articles and reports, and from primary research into services and supports to identify key business supports and business start-up trajectories that have met with success. It contains recommendations for communities for supporting immigrant businesses and identifies best practices that can be adopted in other regions.

Newcomers to Canada of every immigrant category - including skilled workers, business class, families, and refugees - start and grow businesses in this country. This report brings together existing data, scholarly research, and programs and practices on immigrant self-employment and entrepreneurship with the objective of (1) identifying characteristics of self-employment and entrepreneurship among immigrants, (2) describing the challenges faced by immigrants in starting new businesses, and (3) documenting and describing existing services, programs, and policies available in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) for immigrants who are self-employed and entrepreneurs. The report also describes reasons why immigrants start their own businesses, identifies some lessons learned from other jurisdictions in terms of supporting immigrant entrepreneurs, and provides preliminary observations about the efficacy of existing supports for self-employed immigrants, including perceived gaps in services. The George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation and Maytree commissioned this study to explore whether self-employment and entrepreneurship is a viable option for lifting new Canadians out of poverty in the Greater Toronto Area, and what role, if any, the foundations may have in supporting this transition. Our interest is new Canadians because they make up a significant proportion of the region's poor and may need unique supports to transition into self-employment or to start a business. Self-employment refers to a specific employment status whereas entrepreneurship encompasses self-employment but also carries with it implications of creating something new and the desire to grow the business beyond a sole proprietorship. This report does not distinguish between these two overlapping categories.