White Paper

Human capital is key for economic growth. Not only is it linked to aggregate economic performance but also to each individual’s labour market outcomes. However, a skilled population is not enough to achieve high and inclusive growth, as skills need to be put into productive use at work. Thanks to the availability of measures of both the proficiency and the use of numerous types of skills, the Survey of Adult Skills offers a unique opportunity to advance knowledge in this area and this paper presents and discusses evidence on both these dimensions with a particular focus on their implications for labour market policy. This paper explores the role played in the labour market by skill proficiency in the areas of literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments. It also shows how skills use, not only proficiency, affects a number of key labour market phenomena, such as the gender wage gap. Finally, the paper combines information on skill proficiency, educational attainment, skill use and qualification requirements to construct indicators of qualification and skills mismatch and to explore their causes and consequences.

In this report, [the authors] endeavor to answer one central question: What are the paths US manufacturers can take to nurture a future talent pipeline with the skills - both welders and app developers alike - needed to take advantage of today's technological advances and, most important, to be prepared for those, now unseen, that will emerge in the future. To get a closer look at the US manufacturing talent picture - now and into the future - [the authors] surveyed 120 US manufacturers with a special emphasis on how advanced manufacturing technologies are impacting the workforce dynamics.

Organizations are more boundary-less, agile, global, and transparent — and will be even more so in the future. Work and workers (yes, humans) will always be essential to organizations, but organizations themselves will be more diverse, and work will be organized, structured, and done in new ways, increasingly through arrangements outside of regular full-time employment. How can leaders navigate this new digital work ecosystem? How should your organization plan for the changes ahead?

Canadian education systems rank among the best in the world, resulting in a highly skilled labour force and competitive industries. However, the challenges associated with the twenty-first century have placed new demands on Canada and, by extension, Canadian education systems. In particular, these systems are now tasked with educating a generation that faces an unprecedented pace of social, economic, and technological change.

Important ongoing changes in the way work is structured, distributed, and carried out have the potential to make some workers more vulnerable, while providing other workers with opportunities to improve their circumstances. While these changes may be most evident today in higher-income countries, they will alter the path to secure livelihoods for workers globally. Chapter 1. Flexible Work, Freelance Workers looks at the ongoing drive for workforce flexibility and the emergence of the “freelance economy.” Chapter 2. Automated Work considers the impact of software and robotics, which have the potential to eliminate some jobs, complement human workers in other jobs, and create entirely new jobs—thus generating a great deal of displacement and turmoil in global employment. Over the next two decades, negative consequences of automation are likely to fall hardest on the poor and vulnerable. In lower-income countries a large number of workers—often the majority—are employed in informal agricultural work. Many suffer from chronically insecure livelihoods. For decades, many mainstream economists argued that the most viable pathway to a secure livelihood for agricultural workers has been to shift to an industrial job, usually while relocating to an urban center. But going forward, a confluence of large forces—work restructuring, workplace automation, and driving forces such as globalization, urbanization, economic inequality, and a glut of available workers—is reshaping the pathways to secure livelihoods in lower-income nations, in ways that are not yet fully recognized—or even fully possible to envision. These forces will produce disruption and both risks and opportunities for the poor and vulnerable. Chapter 3. Emerging Work looks at how these forces will change two important aspects of secure livelihoods in lower-income countries: rural work and manufacturing work. Finally, economists and others have begun to consider whether new economic approaches may better balance growth and economic inclusiveness, with positive impacts for the world of work. Chapter 4. Transforming Work considers how structural changes, from restructuring jobs to income guarantees, could transform the world of work. And Chapter 5. Report Conclusions revisits the big story of the future of work, identifying big ideas and key implications, reviewing the unique perspective offered by foresight best practices, and offering suggestions for next steps to explore this crucial topic.

Despite today’s low unemployment rate, workers today face a range of uncertainties and challenges. In the post-World War II era, many workers could expect a stable career at a single company that would assume responsibility for investing in the workers’ skills over time. This stability has now given way to careers consisting of multiple jobs in potentially different occupations and industries. For many, work is becoming more independent, short-term, and project based. At the same time, new technologies are demonstrating the ability to perform tasks previously done by workers. As these trends continue, workers will need to update their existing skills and acquire new skills throughout their careers. This new environment demands changes to the outdated education model in which Americans could expect the education and skills they obtain when they are young to last their entire career. Updating this model to better serve today’s workers requires a variety of approaches. Employers play a unique and vital role in workforce training, but workers must also be given additional tools to acquire new skills and learning opportunities over the course of their careers. This issue brief proposes the creation of worker-controlled Lifelong Learning and Training Accounts (LLTAs). These accounts would be funded by workers, employers, and government, and could be used by workers to pay for education and training opportunities. The accounts are not designed to be long-term savings vehicles; balance limits and limited investment returns are intended to encourage workers to regularly use their LLTA funds for training throughout their careers. Based on economic modeling conducted by District Economics Group, 23 million Americans would contribute to these accounts to fund training over the next ten years, costing the federal government roughly $25 billion over this same time period. This proposal is designed to provide significant incentives to low-income workers to participate in training, given the financial challenges they face participating in savings-based programs. Consistent with that goal, 79 percent of the cost of the proposal would benefit individuals who make under $30,000.

The 2015 edition of Labour Market Outlook is the fourth in a series of ICTC analytics that began with the first edition published in 2006. The aim of this latest edition in this series of studies is to highlight and provide new insights on conditions affecting Canada’s ICT workforce across all economic sectors from demand- and supply-side perspectives. This study tracks and projects the evolution of 15 ICT occupations in 18 municipalities, 10 provinces, and Canada as a whole. The latest innovations in ICTs – in particular the internet of things (IOT) as well as Social, Mobile, Analytics, Apps, and Cloud (SMAAC) – have become key drivers of innovation, productivity, and growth. These enabling technologies have changed the ways Canadians communicate and live their daily lives, as well are creating new business and employment opportunities. Social and economic transformations have changed the demand for skills and changing skill needs are reshaping the entire labour market across all sectors. This study aims to provide evidence on future labour market developments to help informed decision making. The results and findings of this study cover key aspects of the technological renaissance and economic, demographic, and educational outlooks from the viewpoint of their impacts on the demand and supply of ICT talent and skills. This study updates the forecasts carried out in 2011 by applying improved data and methods and forecasts for the ICT skills demand and supply in Canada up to and including 2019. The analytical framework is based on robust labour market research and intelligence. The data for all 15 occupations identified by the 4-digit National Occupational Classification (NOC) codes were collected at the municipal and provincial levels, which were further analyzed, and summarized. The 2015-2019 Labour Market Outlook was further improved through use of the latest available labour force data and use of comprehensive industry feedback. The forecasts consider major economic and socio-demographic trends and examine their implications for ICT occupations. This is done by incorporating relevant trends and policies, feedback from in-depth consultation with over 1,000 representative employers across Canada, inputs of five regional focus group discussions and validation webinars with representatives from industry and other stakeholder groups, and valuable insights of a 22-member distinguished multinational Labour Market Outlook Advisory Group in the analytical framework.

Increased use of robots has roused concern about how robots and other new technologies change the world of work. Using numbers of robots shipped to primarily manufacturing industries as a supply shock to an industry labor market, we estimate that an additional robot reduces employment and wages in an industry by roughly as much as an additional 2 to 3 workers and by 3 to 4 workers in particular groups, which far exceed estimated effects of an additional immigrant on employment and wages. While the growth of robots in the 1996-2016 period of our data was too modest to be a major determinant of wages and employment, the estimated coefficients suggest that continued exponential growth of robots could disrupt job markets in the foreseeable future and thus merit attention from labor analysts.

Accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities will enable automation of some tasks that have long required human labor.1 These transformations will open up new opportunities for individuals, the economy, and society, but they have the potential to disrupt the current livelihoods of millions of Americans. Whether AI leads to unemployment and increases in inequality over the long run depends not only on the technology itself but also on the institutions and policies that are in place. This report examines the expected impact of AI-driven automation on the economy and describes broad strategies that could increase the benefits of AI and mitigate its costs.