In our previous talent report, Unlocking the human opportunity: Future-proof skills to move financial services forward, we identified four categories of future-proof skills that support the future of work and foster agility and adaptability in talent. In this report, we focused on these four skill categories as a basis for developing upskilling strategies and initiatives.1.Human experience skills 2.Reimagination skills 3.Pivoting skills 4.Future currency skills

In 2013, the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO) research group released the report It's More than Poverty: Employment Precarity and Household Wellbeing. Based on 4,165 surveys collected in late 2011 and early 2012, and 83 interviews conducted in 2011 with workers in different forms of precarious employment, It's More than Poverty examined the characteristics of employment in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area (GTHA). It documented the range of employment experiences and it revealed the extent of insecurity associated with insecure employment relationships. Equally important, it showed the impact of insecure employment relationships on individual and household well-being and community participation. Not all employment relationships have the same characteristics. Some employment is better than other employment and this difference represents more than simple rates of pay. Some employment is more secure. Some employment provides supplemental benefits, such as a prescription-drug plan that insures workers' health needs and unexpected expenses. Some employment provides a secure pension for workers when they retire. Some employment provides a career path and helps workers acquire new skills. Employment that is secure, that provides a full range of benefits and that has a possible career path is generally viewed as better employment, and it is often referred to as a Standard Employment Relationship. Having secure employment, with benefits and a possible career path, is a key to escaping poverty. Over half of PEPSO survey participants not in a Standard Employment Relationship in 2014 reported an annual income of less than $40,000, while less than 15% of those in a Standard Employment Relationship earned less than $40,000. Even when one uses household income, there is still a significant difference between those in a Standard Employment Relationship and those not in such a relationship. Nearly 45% of individuals not in a Standard Employment Relationship reported a household income of less than $60,000, compared to only 16% of those in a Standard Employment Relationship. There is a growing concern that the prevalence of the Standard Employment Relationship is in decline. Secure jobs, with benefits and a possible career path, are becoming harder tofind for many types of workers. This is true for low-wage workers who are working through temporary employment agencies (where many jobs are minimum-wage jobs), for higher-wage knowledge workers (where work is often short-term, project-based work), and for university and college professors (where more than half of all teaching is now done by contract faculty). It's More than Poverty offered evidence of this decline in secure jobs.

This paper surveys the current state of the gig economy and considers how some legislatures, courts and tribunals in North America are handling employment classification of gig workers. In this evolving area of company-worker relationships, it has fallen to courts and tribunals to interpret existing laws, with legislatures slow to take a position.

The ICT disciplines in Australian universities have a strong tradition of industry engagement in curriculum design and implementation particularly through work integrated learning programs. Work integrated learning (WIL) includes industry placements, internships, industry projects and other methods and approaches that aim to enhance the professional practice capabilities of students. There are various stakeholders involved in WIL programs including universities, students, government and industry, each with their own motivations and expectations. Whilst all stakeholders agree on the benefits to students, there are conflicting interests that jeopardise further development and innovation in WIL. This paper reports on surveys of industry and university stakeholders in order to understand representative views and current practices. The findings confirm a lack of a shared understanding between stakeholders regarding roles, responsibilities, models and benefits. The paper concludes with several recommendations regarding the adoption of an outcomes-based approach to the design and implementation of work integrated learning programs that will encourage innovation and quality in WIL.

This paper examines the rate of chronic low income among immigrants aged 25 or older in Canada during the 2000s. Chronic low income is defined as having a family income under a low-income cut-off for five consecutive years or more. A regionally adjusted low-income measure is used for the analysis. Among immigrants who were in low income in any given year, about one-half were in chronic low income. The highest chronic rates were observed among immigrant seniors, as well as immigrants who were unattached or lone parents. There were large differences in the chronic low-income rate by immigrant place of birth, even after adjusting for differences in other immigrant background characteristics. The chronic low-income rate was lower among economic class immigrants than among family or refugee classes, but the difference was reduced after adjusting for background characteristics. Chronic low-income rates among immigrants varied significantly across the 29 cities/regions in the study, varying by a factor of 5 between the highest and lowest rates. However, the community ranking was not static and changed significantly between the beginning and end of the 2000s.

This report provides an account of the first large-scale scoping study of work integrated learning (WIL) in contemporary Australian higher education. The explicit aim of the project was to identify issues and map a broad and growing picture of WIL across Australia and to identify ways of improving the student learning experience in relation to WIL. The project was undertaken in response to high levels of interest in WIL, which is seen by universities both as a valid pedagogy and as a means to respond to demands by employers for work-ready graduates, and demands by students for employable knowledge and skills. Over a period of eight months of rapid data collection, 35 universities and almost 600 participants contributed to the project. Participants consistently reported the positive benefits of WIL and provided evidence of commitment and innovative practice in relation to enhancing student learning experiences. Participants provided evidence of strong partnerships between stakeholders and highlighted the importance of these relationships in facilitating effective learning outcomes for students. They also identified a range of issues and challenges that face the sector in growing WIL opportunities; these issues and challenges will shape the quality of WIL experiences. While the majority of comments focused on issues involved in ensuring quality placements, it was recognised that placements are just one way to ensure the integration of work with learning. Also, the WIL experience is highly contextualised and impacted by the expectations of students, employers, the professions, the university and government policy.

In the third and final phase of a multi-year study of WIL, Work-Integrated Learning in Ontario’s Postsecondary Sector: The Pathways of Recent College and University Graduates followed up with WIL and non-WIL students 18 months after graduation to examine their educational and employment outcomes. The same group of students — from 13 Ontario colleges and universities participating in the previous WIL studies — had also been surveyed at graduation in spring 2012. A total of 3,340 respondents completed the follow-up survey in fall 2013, which explored how WIL graduates differ from non-WIL graduates in further postsecondary education and labour market entry, status, experience and outcomes. Analysis included institution type (college and university), program area, credential and type of WIL activity. Findings While WIL appears to help both college and university students get a better sense of their career goals and pursue relevant employment, not all graduates of all program areas benefited to the same extent from WIL participation, according to the study. Arts and humanities and social sciences university graduates had the lowest levels of WIL participation and even those who participated in WIL experienced fewer labour market benefits. College graduates experienced fewer benefits to WIL participation than university graduates, although the authors note that this could be a reflection of the fact that college education is generally more career-focused and relatively few students graduate without some kind of WIL experience. There were no noteworthy differences in time to employment between college WIL and non-WIL participants. Among university respondents, WIL participants were more likely than non-WIL participants to have had a new job arranged before finishing school, whereas non-WIL participants were more likely to have continued working in a position they held while they were a student. Many WIL graduates contacted previous WIL employers as part of their job search process. For both college and university respondents, employed graduates who participated in WIL were more likely to feel that they were appropriately qualified for their job, that their job was related to their long-term career goals and that their job was related to their studies. The study found that the mean annual income of employed college graduates was $31,402, which did not differ significantly by WIL participation. University graduates who participated in WIL did, however, see an earnings premium. The average annual income of WIL participants was significantly higher than that of non-WIL participants ($45,646 vs. $36,813). This earnings premium held for graduates of business, science and engineering, and health sciences and social services programs but not for social sciences and arts and humanities graduates. The study also found that debt levels did not differ substantially by WIL participation for college or university graduates. The findings are aligned with earlier HEQCO research in the series on WIL. The research found that institutions and employers view work-integrated learning as an important part of the student experience, preparing students to enter the labour market with relevant, transferable and marketable skills. Faculty with WIL experience believe even more of it should be available to students and employers, while nearly half of students with no WIL experience would pursue a WIL option if they could start their postsecondary education over again. The research also found that a key challenge is ensuring that the supply of quality WIL opportunities meets the demand from students, faculty and postsecondary institutions

Canada's average or, in some cases, below-average performance in the OECD's latest survey of adult skills (known as the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC)) sparked some observers to call the quality of Canada's education systems into question. The reason: the results appeared to contradict the prevailing notion that our education systems are among the best in the world. Closer analysis of the survey results, however, reveals the unique ways in which Canada's skills profile is shaped not only by the experiences of those born and educated in the country but also by those of its sizable immigrant population. This paper highlights the full extent to which Canada's education and immigration systems interact in developing the country's human capital. It points to the importance of properly targeting interventions to improve skills proficiency, and of post-immigration programs to support the language skills and cultural capital that are also key to successful integration into the labour market

In the aftermath of the economic crisis, few policy issues have attracted as much attention as skills development. Discussion has focused on the types of skills that employees need to ensure they can successfully navigate an ever-more demanding labour market, and those that employers need to have on hand to help them survive in an ever-more competitive marketplace. This has been accompanied by concerns about skills gaps and mismatches - about whether some Canadians are making poor choices when it comes to their education and training, and whether the labour market is beset with a paradoxical combination of over- and under-qualified workers. In this context, attention has continued to focus on the need for better labour market information to guide the decision of employees, employers and policy makers alike. As an advisory panel on the issue argued in 2009, œa good LMI [labour market information] system will help to improve the matching of people and jobs both in times of labour shortages and high unemployment. And a good LMI system is always necessary to make sure that the right policy decisions are made to improve the economy's performance and lower unemployment.1 In particular, those concerned with the need to better align the skills that workers have with the needs of employers have identified two significant shortcomings with respect to labour market information in Canada: an insufficient level of granularity in the data that tell us what is really going on in the labour market, and a lack of evidence about what kinds of skills training programs are actually succeeding in helping employees keep their jobs or transition to new ones