Canada’s polytechnics have significant untapped innovation and skills development potential that is key to remedying persistent productivity and competitiveness challenges. Investing in and scaling the existing capabilities of polytechnics can yield valuable benefits to the Canadian economy. Polytechnics Canada, the national association of research-intensive polytechnics, colleges and institutes of technology, presents a suite of recommendations that right-size, re-balance and retool federal supports, enhancing productivity and competitiveness: Grow support to polytechnic and college applied research and innovation; Improve business access to polytechnic innovation capability; Create a regional commercialization voucher program. Invest in new labour market information tools; Scale federal work-integrated learning supports; Invest in prior learning recognition supports for mid-career workers.

This study, commissioned by the Center for American Progress, examines broader economic considerations—jobs, incomes, and economic growth—through the lens of two government initiatives this year by the Obama administration and Congress. The first is the set of clean-energy provisions incorporated within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The second is the proposed American Clean Energy and Security Act which is now before Congress. Our analysis in this paper shows that these measures operating together can generate roughly $150 billion per year in new clean-energy investments in the United States over the next decade. This estimated $150 billion in new spending annually includes government funding but is notably dominated by private-sector investments. We estimate this sustained expansion in clean-energy investments can generate a net increase of about 1.7 million jobs. This expansion in job opportunities can continue as long as the economy maintains a commitment to clean-energy investments in the $150 billion per year range. If clean-energy investments expand still faster, overall job creation will increase correspondingly. These investments could, therefore, not only guide us out of our fossil-fuel dependent crisis, but serve as a powerful engine of economic recovery and long-term economic vigor in the U.S.

We are living through a profound transition towards the Next Digital Economy. Even if the outcomes of this transition may be positive for many, the changes it imposes could be difficult. Each previous economic transition has spawned new ways of thinking, redirected human energies, disrupted ways of life, overturned powerful institutions, and transformed the built and natural environments. The same could happen again, and this time the speed and scale of transformation might make adaptation more challenging than ever before. The Next Digital Economy promises to revolutionize value chains and introduce a different model for the production and consumption of goods and services. Much of our economic activity may become digitally intermediated, customized, on demand, and globally distributed. Eight digital technologies are maturing and combining to change the economy: The Internet of Things will collect vast amounts of data and bring it to bear on the physical world. Artificial intelligence (AI) and automated cognitive tasks will introduce new economic actors. Robotics will perform physical labour and provide an embodied platform for AI. Advanced telepresence will allow us to project ourselves and our expertise anywhere in the world that is connected to networks. Virtual reality will offer immersive non-physical worlds, while mixed reality will combine physical and virtual worlds, creating a third space distinct from both. Advanced materials are enabling the production of micro- and nanoscale devices that can bring digitization to many new areas at low power. Decentralized production technologies such as 3D printing could use locally available inputs, including new biomaterials, to manufacture countless products on demand for local markets. Blockchain technologies create unique, non-copiable digital assets. This enables secure, low-cost transactions between parties who do not know each other.

The objective of this project was to identify the next generation of global challenges for consideration by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) as part of its Imagining Canada’s Future (ICF) initiative. Climate change is a familiar global challenge. While that problem is far from solved, we were focused on what else lies over the horizon. The challenges we explored have several shared characteristics. They are emerging problems with the potential to shape society in profound ways. Publicly funded research could help inform public dialogue and policy development. Each challenge is multi-disciplinary and requires broad cooperation to solve. Many emerge from technological innovations and, as current headlines attest, those challenges are perhaps in greatest need of attention from social science and humanities researchers. The point at which each challenge may become pressing varies but all of the challenge themes would benefit from proactive, transdisciplinary exploration and discussion

We are living through a transition to the Next Digital Economy, in which much of our economic activity may become digitally intermediated, customized, on demand, and globally distributed. As a result, the models for production and consumption of goods and services are shifting, which could affect both the amount and the nature of work. As a broad suite of technologies – such as task-based platforms, telepresence, automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and blockchain – mature and combine, they are poised to have a particularly disruptive impact on employment and the experience of work. This paper explores five key game changers for the future of work. A game changer is a significant shift in the way we think about or do something. Each section describes the basic elements of the game changer and identifies implications for public policy. Work moves from being long-term and time-based to temporary and task based. In a globally competitive labour market where many people are paid by the task, how can governments ensure that minimum wage and employment standards are met, and social support systems are effective? AI and the automation of tasks could put people out of work long before technologies replace entire jobs. How would people cope with reskilling and job loss when tasks could replace jobs as the basic unit of work and are being automated across all sectors? AI decreases the scarcity of knowledge workers, potentially allowing jobless growth in knowledge industries. If knowledge and some forms of intelligence can be replicated as needed, what might happen to cognitive labour and ‘thinking’ professions in the future? Combined digital technologies could reduce the need for human intermediaries who provide trust and security. What might happen if technology eliminates human transactional roles from the workforce? Where people work and earn may not be where they live and spend. What might happen to taxation, social benefits, and the secondary economy when a person can live anywhere in the world but work in Canada, or vice-versa? Exploring these changes can help identify potential challenges and opportunities, which provides the foundation for a productive dialogue on future-oriented policy.

In order to stay competitive and improve their performance, manufacturing SMEs must develop new strategies and new business processes that rely on the use of information technology and communication (ICT). Currently, the challenges for SMEs are numerous with one hand, the transformation that occurs at high speed in manufacturing companies, including through massive public investment, and secondly, the intensification e-commerce that changes not only the retail business models, but becomes a lever management and coordination of supply chains. In this context, companies that want to remain competitive and increase their use of digital technology must have leaders who are equipped to understand the opportunities of digital and teams who have the skills to make the most of ICT. Indeed, investment in the acquisition and use of new ICT is only part of the equation, the balance based on the ability of employees of a company to make use of ICT, but also to intensify this use in their work context. The role of users in the development of the digital capacity of the organization is central today. Clearly, the development of digital skills is at the heart of the modernization of the industrial fabric Quebec. 7 In addition to the challenges for the organization, the development of this digital skills a challenge since the workers have to adapt to technological and organizational changes. There is also no doubt that mastery of digital skills is a professional success factor, the results published by the OECD indicates that "the fact of achieving the highest levels of problem solving skills to using ICT increases the probability to be more active, for an adult, by 6 percentage points compared to individuals at the lowest levels in this area, even after controlling for factors such as age, gender, level of education. "1 In addition, adults without experience with ICT are less likely to be active and when they are, are paid less. But what "digital skills" need organizations and their staff? What are the characteristics of these skills? CEFRIO has, in 2012, wanted to explore the issue of digital skills in the context of digital switchover SMEs. He then commissioned a research team under the measure 2.0 SMEs formed Amélie Bernier and Dragos Vieru TELUQ and Simon Bourdeau from the University of Quebec in Montreal, to offer some answers to these questions . [googletranslate_en]

Traditionally, much of the research on immigrant-owned businesses focused on the ethnic economy, that is, the extent to which demand for specialized goods by particular ethnic groups provides opportunities for immigrant entrepreneurs in those communities. This is reflected in immigrant-owned grocery stores, restaurants, and other retail and service firms catering to niche markets. More recently, attention has shifted towards the role of immigrant entrepreneurs in the broader economy, and specifically in high-tech and knowledge-based businesses. Little is known about the nature of immigrant-owned businesses in Canada. Because of data limitations, studies have tended to centre on immigrant self-employment, thereby excluding large segments of immigrant business ownership. To address this gap, this analysis uses 2010 data from Statistics Canada’s Canadian Employer–Employee Dynamics Database to describe immigrant-owned firms, in particular the extent to which they are in knowledge-based industries (KBIs) or in more traditional industries such as retail trade and food services. In addition, differences in industrial distribution by immigrant class (family, refugee, business, and economic classes) are examined. This study builds on an earlier study based on the same data set, which showed that after a period of adjustment and integration, immigrants have a higher rate of business ownership than the Canadian-born (Green et al. 2016). However, immigrant-owned private incorporated companies tend to be smaller than those owned by the Canadian-born, with these firms employing an average of four and seven paid workers respectively. The rate of unincorporated self-employment is also higher among immigrants than the Canadian-born. The analysis focuses on two types of businesses. The first is private incorporated businesses, which are considered to be immigrant-owned if at least one owner is an immigrant. Owners with at least a 10% share of the company are identified. Only private incorporated businesses with employees are included. The second is businesses owned by the unincorporated self-employed. The vast majority of these businesses do not have employees. For about 55% of unincorporated self-employed immigrants, their business is their main economic activity and self-employment is their main source of earnings (Green et al. 2016). They are referred to as primarily self-employed and the businesses they own are included in this study. The remaining 45% are excluded because self-employment is a secondary economic activity as earnings from paid jobs exceed those from self-employment. Businesses owned by immigrants aged 18 to 69 who entered Canada since 1980 are the focus of the analysis. The comparison group consists of businesses owned by the Canadian-born plus immigrants who came to Canada before 1980 (collectively referred to as ‘the Canadian-born,’ as 93% were born in Canada).

With increased pressure on the postsecondary education system to prepare students for a changing workforce, competency-based education (CBE) is emerging as a promising model for preparing graduates to meet employer demands. A new report published by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, Competency-based Education: Driving the Skills-measurement Agenda, explores the development of CBE in North America and examines its promise and potential in Ontario. Competency-based education — a model that focuses on the knowledge and abilities students demonstrate, regardless of the amount of time they spend in a classroom — is gaining attention internationally. Because they hold the potential to graduate students quickly, cost-effectively and with the skills needed to meet employer demands, CBE programs are ideally suited for groups not always well-served by traditional postsecondary education, such as adult learners.

‘Industry 4.0’ is more discourse than reality. Yet, unlike many other prognostications of social change, it quickly set off a broad and vital public debate. Industry 4.0 promises to improve economic growth, competitiveness and innovative capacity, but above and beyond these it also is supposed to bring better working conditions generally, more creativity, higher resource efficiency, greater compatibility between work and private life and working conditions that better adapt themselves to the needs of older workers (Kagermann/Wahlster/ Helbig 2013: 5).