This report considers the current situation of the energy and utilities sector in the UK, the challenges it faces over the medium term and the implications for skills. The intention is to provide a summary of the extent to which the performance challenges faced by the sector can be addressed through skills development and thereby bring about growth and contribute to the recovery of the UK economy. A strong energy sector provides the products and services that are essential to modern living. An efficient sector underpins a productive and sustainable economy. A diverse sector is strategically vital for the UK to improve its balance of trade and reduce its dependency on overseas energy sources. The energy sector is at the forefront of the development of a low carbon economy. The energy and utilities sector consists of three main areas of business activity, which have shown quite different development trajectories in recent years: Mining and oil and gas extraction: which employs more than 100,000 people, although numbers declined in mining, quarrying and oil extraction during the 2000s. Recycling/Materials recovery: a growing sub-sector, which developed from contractor services for local authority run waste collection, and employed 23,000 people in 2010. Electricity and other utilities: this subsector is dominated by large scale regulated providers for electricity, gas and water utilities, employing almost 200,000 people in 2010.

The present work proposes a novel methodology for the measurement of investment in human capital in the form of training. Differently from existing studies, the expenditures-based approach pursued encompasses investment in formal and on-the-job training, as well as in informal learning and yields estimates that account for both the opportunity and the direct cost of the different forms of training considered. Using a wide array of data sources, including new and rich individual-level data collected through the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey as well as Labour Force Surveys (LFS) and System of National Accounts (SNA) data, the study proposes estimates of investment in training for the years 2011-2012. These cover 22 OECD countries and are provided at both the economy and industry levels. Estimates suggest that average total investment in training corresponds to 6.7% of gross value added (GVA), with investment in on-the-job training (amounting to 2.4% of GVA, on average) that are substantially in line with those of previous literature. Wide sector and country heterogeneity in the relative importance of investment in formal and on-the-job and informal learning also emerge. On average, production appears more intensive in on-the-job training (relative to other training types) than overall services, but not relative to business services only. Public-oriented services such as education and health services invest a greater (smaller) proportion of total training expenditure in formal (on-the-job) training than other sectors and the overall economy.

This paper addresses the following question: does Canada’s ‘inclusive’ Innovation and Skills Plan outlined in the 2017 Budget also constitute an ‘automation plan’? To this end, this paper has engaged in a benchmarking of the Trudeau Government’s Innovation and Skills Plan as outlined in the 2017 Budget against the three pillars of an ‘automation plan’, as collated from the global literature on automation. At the outset, David Ticoll’s labour obsolescence analysis is deemed the most appropriate methodology to guide policymakers’ assessments the threat of automation. The three pillars of an ‘automation plan’ include initiatives aimed at creating new jobs via innovation policy, supporting skills modernization via training and education policies, and supporting the displaced via transforming the social safety net. The first pillar is only partially fulfilled, as measuring the true extent of the threat of automation through labour obsolescence analysis is missing from the 2017 Budget’s considerable focus on creating new jobs via innovation policy. The second pillar is also only partially fulfilled, as the Budget’s prioritization of skills modernization did not include efforts to bridge the private-public sector data gap on the diffusion/impact of automation technology. The third pillar - policies aimed at supporting the displaced via transforming the social safety net - was the least fulfilled in the Budget, as transformative initiatives such as universal basic income were largely ignored. This exercise yields the conclusion that Canada’s ‘inclusive’ Innovation and Skills Plan as outlined by Budget 2017 presents a policy package more in line with an ‘Innovation and Skills Plan’ aimed at capitalizing on the upside of innovation, while only partially constituting an ‘automation plan’ designed to manage the disruption of automation.

Through its green jobs initiative, BLS has developed its green jobs definition and published information on green careers and results from three new data collection activities that measure the number of green jobs that produce green goods and services and the number of jobs related to the use of green technologies and practices.

Hotter years are associated with lower economic output in country-level data. We show that the effect of temperature on labor is an important part of the explanation. Using high-frequency micro data from selected firms in India, we find that worker productivity on hot days declines by 2 to 4 percent per degree Celsius. Sustained heat also increases worker absenteeism. Using a national panel of manufacturing plants, we find similar temperature effects on output and show that these can be fully accounted for by reductions in the productivity of labor. Estimated effect sizes are consistent with studies that rely on country GDP panels.

As the transformational impacts of technologies continue to play an increasing role in our lives, a better understanding of the social, economic, legal and environmental impacts of emerging and digital technologies is critical to optimizing their use, and to ensuring equitable access to meet the needs of Canadians. These issues are explored in addressing the question “How can emerging technologies be leveraged to benefit Canadians? ”as one of six future challenge areas identified in the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s (SSHRC) Imagining Canada’s Future initiative. In 2016, social sciences and humanities researchers from across Canada were invited to address this question through an open call for proposals, with a focus on identifying key strengths and gaps in current knowledge related to the impacts of emerging technologies across multiple sectors of society. This report draws on the findings of their 24 knowledge synthesis reports, as well as on insights from exchanges among researchers, graduate students and cross-sectoral leaders. Overall, the researchers’ findings call for future research to be increasingly interdisciplinary and longitudinal. Meaningful and inclusive dialogue about emerging and disruptive technologies among and across communities, individuals, researchers, industry and all levels of government is critical to building upon and applying resulting knowledge.

Our disability claims policy and the process to implement this policy require that we evaluate medical, and in most cases, work information. When we evaluate work information, we take into account work in the national economy to determine whether a claimant can do his or her past work or adjust to other work as it is performed in the national economy. Our main source of occupational information, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), was developed by the Department of Labor (DOL) in 1938. However, the DOL stopped updating the DOT in 1991. In order to make accurate decisions, we must have information that reflects current occupations and their requirements. As a result, we are developing a new Occupational Information System (OIS), which will replace the DOT as the primary source of occupational information SSA staff use in our disability adjudication process.

Despite research interest in the motivations, experiences and challenges of Ontario postsecondary students who have transferred from college to university, there has been too little in-depth quantitative analysis on these topics. This study contributes to the literature by documenting transfer between York University and Seneca College – two institutions whose strong partnership has encouraged a high volume of transfer in both directions – over a period of 12 years (2000-2012).

The vast majority of respondents to the 2014 Future of the Internet canvassing anticipate that robotics and artificial intelligence will permeate wide segments of daily life by 2025, with huge implications for a range of industries such as health care, transport and logistics, customer service, and home maintenance. But even as they are largely consistent in their predictions for the evolution of technology itself, they are deeply divided on how advances in AI and robotics will impact the economic and employment picture over the next decade. We call this a canvassing because it is not a representative, randomized survey. Its findings emerge from an “opt in” invitation to experts who have been identified by researching those who are widely quoted as technology builders and analysts and those who have made insightful predictions to our previous queries about the future of the Internet.