White Paper

Using data scraped from job postings collected by Burning Glass Technologies from January 2012 to December 2018, this report uncovers the specific digital (skills that involve the use of and/or production of digital technologies) and non-digital (including soft) skills that employers in Canada are seeking. Our aim is to help inform the efforts of policymakers, educators and training organizations, as well as the decisions of students and job seekers looking to understand which skill combinations are likely to serve them best in the job market.

This report closely examines tech workers across Canada and seeks to shed light on Canada’s tech occupations and the diversity and equity within them. Adding almost 200,000 new jobs since 2016, Canada’s highly-skilled tech workers are becoming a major component of Canada’s workforce. Using brand new methodologies and powerful data visualizations, Who are Canada’s Tech Workers? looks to provide a clear and concise resource for anyone looking to learn more about Canada’s tech talent and its growing impact on our economy.

This report is a synthesis of the key messages that emerged from the multidisciplinary panel of experts. It outlines a series policy research priorities and research questions to further explore the role and impact of LMI on Canadians' participation in the labour market. The report concludes with a brief description of potential research projects and methodological approaches best suited to address these research priorities.

Mature women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM), and trades are increasingly present but face many challenges. This reflection paper originates from discussions and questioning at the Gender Summit 11 in Montréal, in November 2017. It first briefly describes the current situation of women who are not taking the usual linear path from high school to university and professional life. It examines how the current system may overlook their capabilities and highlights the potential that they have to significantly contribute to the Canadian job market and economy. It summarizes the challenges they face and proposes potential avenues for solutions and strategies that may help improve their chances of contributing to Canadian innovation. The data show that mature students are becoming a large part of Canadian higher education institutions and in general have a better graduation rate than students coming directly from high school, or cégep, in Québec. Barriers can be numerous for mature women who are interested in returning to higher education, and include entry requirements and admission criteria, lack or limited support (e.g. financial, childcare, etc.), and marginalisation and negative perceptions. Establishment of networks or support groups for mature women in STEM and trades, as well as changing institutional culture, are among some of the strategies that were put forward in the three round tables that were organized to discuss the issue. It is expected that this reflection/policy paper will help funding agencies, governments and institutions such as colleges and universities to develop solutions for the better inclusion of people (especially women) not following the usual path from high school, or cégep, and universities to careers in STEM.

The aim of this working document is therefore to analyse the digital economy and the transformation of work by considering whether specific developments in this respect can be better characterised as a continuation of previous trends or a departure from the past. Based on more than 25 years of research experience in the field, the authors firstly investigate which aspects of the digital economy model can be deemed genuine novelties and potential harbingers of major breaks with the past, and which are merely amplified versions of existing trends for industry and service-sector restructuring and workplace transformations. The second part of the document examines the major technological breakthroughs which are currently disrupting workplaces, as well as their transformative potential, while the third part looks at new forms of work – particularly virtual work – in the digital economy. The fourth and final part of the document deals with the relationship between geographical distance and social bonds and the regulatory challenges posed by unstructured working patterns, before concluding with a reappraisal of the meaning of work in professional environments where virtual worlds cross over into real life.

Studies on the future of work tend to focus on the jobs at risk of automation, with projections varying widely from 6% to 59%. Sunil Johal and Michael Urban take a different approach in reviewing eight expert reports and the actions taken by nine ckey takeaways ;ountries to prepare for the challenges ahead. They distill key lessons for Canada to ensure workers are equipped with the skills they need to thrive in tomorrow’s economy, whatever shape it takes. In our first report in Skills Next, we look at top research and skills training programs that are succeeding internationally, and highlight for Canadian policymakers key features driving success. The future of work will disrupt traditional labour employer-worker relations in five distinct ways. So by looking at skills training programs around the globe, what can be learned about developing digital tools for citizens, building innovation hubs, effective public-private partnerships, responsible public spending, and legal reforms that policymakers can use at home?

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol (A/RES/61/106) was adopted on 13 December 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007. There were 82 signatories to the Convention, 44 signatories to the Optional Protocol, and 1 ratification of the Convention. This is the highest number of signatories in history to a UN Convention on its opening day. It is the first comprehensive human rights treaty of the 21st century and is the first human rights convention to be open for signature by regional integration organizations. The Convention entered into force on 3 May 2008. The Convention follows decades of work by the United Nations to change attitudes and approaches to persons with disabilities. It takes to a new height the movement from viewing persons with disabilities as œobjects of charity, medical treatment and social protection towards viewing persons with disabilities as œsubjects with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society. The Convention is intended as a human rights instrument with an explicit, social development dimension. It adopts a broad categorization of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that all persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms. It clarifies and qualifies how all categories of rights apply to persons with disabilities and identifies areas where adaptations have to be made for persons with disabilities to effectively exercise their rights and areas where their rights have been violated, and where protection of rights must be reinforced. The Convention was negotiated during eight sessions of an Ad Hoc Committee of the General Assembly from 2002 to 2006, making it the fastest negotiated human rights treaty.

Between 1991 and 2011, the share of young people with a university degree increased significantly, as did the share of young workers employed in professional occupations. Nevertheless, many young university degree holders could still be consideredoverqualified'--working in occupations requiring lower levels of education. In this article, changes in the overqualification among young graduates are examined over the period from 1991 to 2011. In 2011, 28% of all employed women aged 25 to 34 worked inprofessional' occupations--those typically requiring a university degree--up from 18% in 1991. Among employed men the same age, 18% worked in professional occupations in 2011, up from 13% in 1991. Among university graduates aged 25 to 34 who were not in management occupations, 18% of men and women worked in occupations usually requiring a high school education or less, and about 40% of both men and women worked in occupations usually requiring a college-level education or less. These proportions have changed little since 1991. Among university-educated immigrants who did not graduate in Canada or the United States, 43% of women and 35% of men worked in occupations requiring a high school education or less. In comparison, the same rates for the Canadian-born and for immigrants who graduated in Canada or the U.S. varied between 15% and 20%. About one third of working men and women aged 25 to 34 with a university degree in humanities (which includes history, literature and philosophy) were employed in occupations requiring a high school education or less. In contrast, less than 10% of men and women with a university degree in education were in occupations typically requiring a high school education. Men and women in health and related fields, and in architecture, engineering and related fields also had rates below 15%.