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21 Jobs of the Future

Ethical Sourcing Officer, Personal Memory Curator, Digital Tailor… this 2017 report from the Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work proposes 21 new jobs that will emerge over the next 10 years and that it says will become cornerstones of the future of work.

cognizant.com/whitepapers

New World of Work

A new podcast series from the McKinsey Global Institute explores how technologies like automation, robotics and artificial intelligence are shaping how we work, where we work, and the skills we need to work.

mckinsey.com/global-themes

What key competencies are needed In the digital age?

Published by Deloitte in 2017, this report takes a look at the competencies necessary to adjust to the digital age as well as the impact on education and the training system, the labour market and what it means for companies.

deloitte.com

Social and Solidarity Economy and the Future of Work

Released in July 2017 by the International Centre for Training (ICT), the report looks at key drivers and trends in the future of work, examines the contributions of social and solidarity economy enterprises and organizations, and provides policy recommendations.

socioeco.org

Robots vs Jobs

Often cited is a 2013 report by Oxford University said that 47% of jobs are at risk from automation. But a more recent report by the OECD says only 9% of jobs are under serious threat. TVO’s The Agenda asks: is automation a realistic threat?

tvo.org

The Digital Talent Gap: Are Companies Doing Enough?

In this report released by the Capgemini Digital Transformation Institute in November 2017, experts look at the definition of digital talent and what it encompasses (hard digital skills, soft digital skills and digital roles created as a result of digital transformation) and examine the causes of the widening gap.

capgemini.com

Future of Work

In this free research-based webinar recording offered by Challenge Factory, you will learn more on the five following trends: demographics & legacy, shift career ownership, impact of the freelance economy, emergence of platforms and automation.

centreforcareerinnovation.com

The Future of Skills: Employment in 2030

Published in 2017 by Nesta and Oxford Martin School, this report looks at the drivers of change and the interactions that are expected to shape industry structures and labour markets in 2030.

nesta.org

Workforce of the Future: The Competing Forces Shaping 2030

In this report released in 2017 by PwC, you will learn more about the forces shaping the future and the way it will affect the way we work by 2030 but also how it will have an impact on the workforce and types of jobs that will be available.

pwc.com

AI and the Future of Work

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE) hosted a conference in November 2017, which brought together industry, academia, economists and visionaries for an open dialogue about AI’s impact. Watch session highlights.

futureofwork.mit.edu/videos

Tips for students, career professionals, employers and faculty on how to respond to disruption

By Philip D. Gardner

The next wave of technological innovation is already upon us. Susskind and Susskind (2017) have studied the future of the professions and offer a cautionary tale of what the future holds. All fields face disruption from various types of technology driven by accelerating advances in artificial intelligence, cognitive systems and data analytics. As technology pushes forward, the educated worker now faces challenges, largely avoided up to this point. How do we prepare our post-secondary graduates to prepare for a life of constant disruption, complete with job interruptions, shifting skill demands, and new approaches to sustaining a healthy career?

Disruption as a way of life

Friedman (2016) explains the hollowing out of jobs as a process of pulling job tasks apart where high-value elements are skilled up (requiring more advanced abilities) and low-value elements are skilled down (requiring lower abilities), or are eliminated by technology. Technology will handle more and more tasks associated with popular jobs sought by university and college students, eliminating the need for their talents (Susskind and Susskind, 2017).  David Mindell (2015) of Massachusetts Institute of Technology emphasizes the impact of advancing technologies on our workplaces this way:

“Change the technology and you change the task, and you change the nature of the worker – in fact you change the entire population of people who can operate a system.”

In other words, technological adoption changes the composition of the tasks in a job that triggers a need for a different type of person. As the type of workers changes in an organization, the organization reshapes itself, thus changing the connections within systems where they reside.

Sustaining one’s professional career depends on the individual’s ability to identify, and agility to adapt to, technological forces that are reshaping their jobs. These forces affect all of students, career professionals, employers and faculty alike.

Responding to disruption

Students

• Need to engage in a variety of learning environments, mostly outside the traditional classroom, to gain insights in adapting learning in new situations.
• Will be required to have professional work experience prior to their final year. These experiences will have to be longer in duration (8 to 12 months) in order to begin to develop, apply and understand the skills, competencies and work behaviours required for success. Schools in Canada already experiment with longer employment terms with the University of Toronto’s Professional Year program, for example.
• Must understand that recruiting practices are changing quickly and they will have to adjust to more social media interactions, online assessments, and third-party services (online interviewing) before the first face-to-face meeting with an organization’s representative.
• Must shift their mindset to embrace the interconnection of academic and professional success and to consciously acknowledge both upon the first day of class.
• From the liberal arts need to integrate their experiences through reflection, crafting their personal legend (story) that captures the interest of employers.

Career professionals

• Face technological advances (which reduce head count and limit budget growth) that will eliminate many tasks currently performed, including event planning, scheduling and co-ordinating the interface between student and employer.
• Accept that affective computing will provide automated (sophisticated AI software plus robotics) “trusted advisors” that can serve as basic career advisors.
• Will coach and train other academic staff (academic advisors, faculty and other academic support services) to be front-line career agents.
• Will assist students in learning how to handle new recruiting strategies adopted by employers and provide coaching on how to build social relationships that advance their career prospects.
• Serve as the key “integrators” of the student experience, working with students to weave their total post-secondary experience into whole cloth and craft one’s personal story.
• Must adjust their approach to career counselling as described in Pryor and Bright’s Chaos Theory of Careers.

Employers

• Will begin using more sophisticated applicant tracking systems that integrate new campus hiring with experienced hiring.
• Will adopt more neurologically-based assessment (such as gaming) to assemble talent pools linked more to organizational fit than selection-based criteria such as academic major or limiting selection from only core schools. Work attitudes and behaviours will trump skills which employers now assume that universities are addressing.
• Will invite younger students to engage with the organization in a variety of ways, including internships.
• Will employ new strategies to avoid the fees requested by many universities to attend career fairs, connect with students through classes and information sessions, and obtain profile information.
• Expect to interface directly with students without university of college representatives serving as gatekeepers or intermediaries.

Faculty

• Have to set the campus culture that success is a combination of academic rigour and professional development.
• Must validate student experiences by recognizing them and acknowledging them in their classes.
• Encourage and support student participation in work-related experiences, especially faculty in the liberal arts.
• Failure to provide a healthy climate for professional development may face declining interest in their disciplines and face students struggling to transition, even in very strong labour markets.

AUTHOR BIO

Philip D. Gardner is Director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University. His major areas of research include the transition from college to work, early socialization and career progression in the workplace, workforce readiness, and other areas related to college student studies. MSU’s nationally recognized annual college labour market study is done under his direction each fall.

References

Friedman, T. L. (2016). Thank you for being late: An optimist’s guide to thriving in the age of accelerations. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Mindell, D. A. (2015). Our robots, ourselves: Robotics and the myths of autonomy. New York: Viking.

Pryor, R., & Bright, J. (2011). The chaos theory of careers: A new perspective on working in the twenty-first century. New York: Routledge.

Susskind, R. and Susskind, D. (2017). The future of the professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts. United Kingdom: Oxford Press.

Understanding computing disciplines to help advisors guide students in choosing the right career path

By Janet Miller and Randy Connolly

When you are out at a party, meeting new people, how do you answer the question “What do you do?”  Do you respond with a job title, or do you describe some of the functions of your work?  Do you try to describe the impact of your responsibilities, or do you talk about the education or training that led you into this career? In some career sectors, it can be especially difficult to answer this question in a way that provides a satisfying answer. Computing is one of those sectors.

Explaining the computing sector to better advise for computer-related careers

Jobs like Software Developer or Gaming and Multimedia Specialist might sound familiar, but when we are asked to really describe what these people do, many career advisors struggle to have clear answers about the tasks of the job and the recommended post-secondary training. Answering the question “What do you do?” gets even more uncertain when we are talking about fields like bioinformatics, IT security or computational science. To make it even more complicated, the field of computing has expanded rapidly over the past decade, and we know that many current computing students will take on jobs that do not even exist today. Despite this complexity and breadth, online career counselling resources typically treat computing as a single discipline, usually labelled Computer Science. Research and practice have shown that computer science programs are often the first to be recommended to prospective students, and based on the nearly 50% attrition rate reported by these programs (Beaufouef & Mason, 2005; Chen & Soldner, 2013), we know that this is not the best fit for all students interested in computing.

This is similar to working with a student who is interested in the food and beverage industry but who is only exploring careers related to cooking. With support from a knowledgeable advisor, this prospective student may also consider food and beverage-related marketing, business administration, bartending, front-of-house service work, sales, construction, skilled trades, accounting or interior design. Helping this student to engage in study at an applied institute for culinary training might be the best fit, or alternatively, a university degree program focused on public relations and communication skills might be more in line with their actual industry-related interests.

Despite the fact that computer-related careers are the paradigmatic work of the 21st century, surprisingly little is known about the range of work people can do within this field. Perceptions of computing are especially shaped by stereotypical portrayals in film and television (insert mental picture of cubical work or darkened basements, of hackers and programming geeks, here). Constraints we face as career advisors when working to support career exploration in the computing disciplines include these media-reinforced clichés, and access to only generalized information about this complex and growing field.

Distinct sub-disciplines, sub-specialties and numerous possible educational paths

The Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) has acknowledged the increasing complexity of computing by articulating five distinct disciplines within computing: computer science (CS), information systems (IS), software engineering (SE), computer engineering (CE) and information technology (IT). These different sub-disciplines are carefully described in their own ACM Curriculum Recommendations. These five disciplines in turn have a number of sub-specialities that have resulted in dozens of possible educational paths for students interested in computing.

Our research with computing and non-computing undergraduates in three different countries indicated that computing students had the most difficulty making the distinction between IT and IS-related tasks, and that students need to understand that the CS field had less to do with software development than they might think. We concluded that we needed to provide students with more information about the SE role in designing, developing and implementing software, and help students to see CS as more focused on the theoretical foundations of information and computation.

With the generous support of CERIC project partner funding, we developed a free research-informed publication designed to support career exploration into the computing disciplines. Computing Disciplines: A Quick Guide for Prospective Students and Career Advisors describes the five computing disciplines in a way that we think will be meaningful to prospective students, parents and career advisors.

Each discipline is outlined through a brief description, and then we provide an “outside view” of the discipline (more of what we might say as a way of introducing ourselves at a party), and an “inside view” of what this area of work might involve. We have made the Quick Guide visual and invite prospective students to see themselves doing the tasks associated with each kind of career. The diagrams for each area visually describe its tendency towards either the applied or the theoretical aspects of computing – a perspective that easily connects with theories of personality and measure of career interests. Career practitioners can review “on-the-job tasks” with interested students, as well as typical core courses that the student could expect to encounter in college or university. Working backwards from job titles, career advisors can help students to consider pathways available to reach that goal. We understand that for students, their initial understanding of the different computing disciplines may play a large role in whether or not they decide to register in a computing program. The guide assists students to create a narrative of their career path that goes beyond the typical “computer science” label.

Our hope is that this resource will be a pleasure to read, easy to work with, and effective for supporting exploration into the diverse world of computing. For more information on the guide or to access a free download, please visit ceric.ca/computing.

AUTHOR BIOS

Dr Janet Miller is a Counselling Psychologist with expertise in post-secondary mental health issues and personal development. She celebrates career planning as encompassing all aspects of life, learning and work, and much of her research focuses on career, leadership and student success. In addition to working at Mount Royal University for nearly 20 years, she is the Editor of Kaleidoscope, a Certified Trainer with the Centre for Suicide Prevention and an accomplished keynote speaker. She can be reached at janet.miller@hotmail.com.

Randy Connolly has been teaching at Mount Royal University since 1997. He is the author of three textbooks, the most recent of which is Fundamentals of Web Development, Second Edition, used by thousands of students at over 100 universities worldwide. He has also authored 34 peer-reviewed papers and given over 20 international research presentations. He is on the editorial boards of the two main journals for computing education (ACM Transaction on Computing Education and ACM Inroads). He can be reached at rconnolly@mtroyal.ca.

REFERENCES

ACM/IEEE-CS (2010). “IS 2010 Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Systems”. Accessed on May 13, 2016 from http://www.acm.org/education/curricula/IS%202010%20ACM%20final.pdf

ACM/IEEE- CS (2013). “Computer Science Curricular 2013: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs”. Accessed on July 09, 2017 from https://www.acm.org/education/CS2013-final- report.pdf

ACM/IEEE- CS (2014). “Software Engineering Curricular 2017: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Software Engineering”. Accessed on July 07, 2017 from http://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/education/se2014.pdf

ACM/IEEE (2016). “Computer Engineering Curricula 2016: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Computer Engineering”. Accessed on July 07, 2017 from https://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/education/ce2016-final-report.pdf

ACM/IEEE- CS (2017). “Information Technology Curricular 2017: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Technology”. Accessed on July 07, 2017 from http://www.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/education/it2017v085.pdf

Beaubouef, T., & Mason, J. (2005). “Why the high attrition rate for computer science students: Some thoughts and observations”. Inroads – The SIGCSE Bulletin, 37(2), 103-106.

Chen, X., & Soldner, M. (2013). “STEM Attrition: College students’ paths into and out of STEM fields”.  Statistical Analysis Report.  U.S. Department of Education, National Centre for Education Statistics: Washington, DC.

Connolly, R., Miller, J., Uzoka, F. M., et al (2016). “Red Fish, Blue Fish: Reexamining Students’ Understanding of the Computing Disciplines”. In Proceedings of the 17th Annual Conference on Information Technology Education. (pp. 115-120). ACM.

Uzoka, F. M., Connolly, R., Schroeder, M., Khemka, N., & Miller, J. (2013). “Computing is not a rock band: student understanding of the computing disciplines”. In Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGITE conference on Information technology education.

As new technology is applied to automating jobs, workers will have to adapt at a pace of change that we’ve never seen before

By Jeremy Auger

Remember all the hubbub about elevator operators losing their jobs? Of course, you don’t. Yet, despite the lack of fanfare, “elevator operator” is the sole job classification that was eliminated from the US Census primarily due to automation [1]. As we contemplate jobs disappearing with the rise of the machines, a look back at the story of the elevator operator might provide a glimpse into the future of work.

For the uninitiated, elevators used to be “driven” by a dedicated operator, who made sure the car stopped smoothly at the right floor. While automation was possible in the early 20^th century, riders demonstrated some resistance to self-driving elevators. A strike of elevator operators in New York City in 1945, however, left a million and a half office workers hiking up flights of stairs to get to their high-rise offices [2]. That opened up people’s willingness to accept automated elevators – and began the path to the eventual demise of the elevator operator.

So, automation and its impact on the workforce has been happening for a long time. What’s changing are the types of jobs impacted – and the speed of the change.

Automation is not new, but it’s being implemented faster than before

The emergence of artificial intelligence means that it’s becoming possible to automate far more than just elevators. According to an Oxford University study, as much as 47% of US employment could be automated within the next decade or so.[3] A study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which looked at tasks instead of job classifications, predicts that the number of jobs that are totally automatable across 21 OECD countries is actually relatively low –  just 9%. However, the study predicts that a more likely scenario is for machines to take over some tasks within existing jobs, freeing human workers to take on new and more complex – and higher value – tasks.[4]

The bottom line – many of our jobs will be impacted, one way or another, by increasing automation. Some jobs will be taken over entirely by machines, following the path of the elevator operator. Others will find elements of their jobs automated. Workers will be expected to shift their time and effort to higher-value activities – many of which may be new and will require additional training.

What’s truly new, though, is the pace of this change.

When elevator operators were phased out, there weren’t protests in the streets or op-eds in the papers – because the process happened slowly. Elevators are expensive, so automation happened as buildings were updated or new buildings were built. The elimination of elevator operators happened over decades, allowing some operators to simply retire without being replaced while others shifted into other customer service activities.

Given the pace of technological adoption, today’s workers likely won’t have this luxury of time to adapt to changes.

Technology changes at a rapid pace

Think about how quickly smartphones became ubiquitous. The first iPhone launched in 2007; a decade later one billion iPhones have been sold [5].

Or, think about how quickly the notion of automated driving has gone from science fiction to a fast-emerging technology. Some of that advancement started in 2004, when the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) offered a $1 million prize for the first team to create a vehicle that could autonomously drive a 150-mile route through the Mojave Desert. In the first year, over 100 teams competed. None successfully finished [6]. Yet, it started research efforts that quickly progressed. Jump forward to 2016 and Waymo – the part of Google dedicated to developing automated driving technology – had vehicles driving in autonomous mode a total of 635,868 miles over 12 months; and that’s just in California [7]. Technological change that once took a generation now happens over the span of a decade – or faster.

As new technology is applied to automating jobs – and elements of jobs – workers will have to continually adapt. They’ll need access to training to enable them to take on higher-value activities. The trouble is that today’s education system isn’t ready for this massive influx of life-long learners who need to quickly gain the skills required to progress in their careers.

We’re seeing this begin to happen. As workers realize they need to update their skills, the number of non-traditional students, defined as students older than 25 and often working while going to school, is growing. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 42% of all college students will be over the age of 25 by 2020 [8]. These students need a more flexible approach that allows them to focus their limited time on acquiring the new skills they need, not reviewing knowledge they already have.  Meeting that need will require a new approach that makes education accessible to a lot more people.

Evolve the education system to better prepare the workforce

Minnesota’s Riverland Community College is an early example of what this might look like. The school piloted on online-based FlexPace program to allow working adults to rapidly earn their business degree while balancing the demands of work, life and school. The program breaks a traditional two-year program into short, six-week courses that can be taken one at a time. FlexPace students can complete a full business associate’s degree in as little as two years and nine months while managing their other responsibilities. Opening up their business program to non-traditional students has led to a 115% increase in enrolment [9].

Ironically, programs like FlexPace are possible because of advances in technology that allow students to access learning at their convenience, progressing at their own pace, while enjoying an engaging, effective learning experience.

Of course, one pilot in Minnesota is just the beginning. But it points a way forward: leveraging technology tools to enable non-traditional students – which will soon include many of us – to access the training they need to take on the tasks that machines can’t!

AUTHOR BIO

Jeremy Auger is Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder at D2L, a Canadian technology company dedicated to help transform the way the world learns by enabling educators to build engaging, accessible digital learning experiences. He is directly responsible for D2L’s company strategy development, intellectual property strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and government relations.

REFERENCES

[1] How Computer Automation Affects Occupations: Technology, Jobs, and Skills, pg. 5

[2] Remembering When Driverless Elevators Drew Skepticism, NPR

[3] The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation? Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne, pg. 44.

[4] Arntz, M., t. Gregory and U. Zierahn (2016), “The Risk of Automation for Jobs in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis”, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 189, OECD Publishing, Paris.

[5] Apple has sold over 1 billion iPhones, The Verge, July 27, 2016

[6] DARPA Grand Challenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

[7] Waymo’s self-driving cars are performing way better, Business Insider, February 1, 2017

[8] Weise, Michelle R. “Got Skills? Why Online Competency-Based Education Is the Disruptive Innovation for Higher Education”

[9] D2L Customer Story: Riverland Community College is providing working adults with flexible and personalized education options

Attracting talent and engaging underrepresented groups

By Dragana Martinovic and Viktor Freiman

Today’s labour market relies heavily on technology and requires skills and competencies that may vary from simply using an online form to apply for work, to writing a sophisticated computer program. With this broad spectrum of workplace demands in mind, we looked into job skills that involve digital technologies needed for Canadians entering the workforce, and the ways to attract talent and engage underrepresented groups (Martinovic & Freiman, 2013).

European forecasters (CEDEFOP, 2012) predict decline in manual and routine jobs—easily replaced by technology or organizational change—and increase in highly skilled jobs, over-qualification of people who will try to stay competitive in threatened economies, and further polarization of the workforce towards a top-heavy and bottom-heavy job spectrum. While Canada was so far successful in attracting immigrants with specific skills, the anticipated worldwide shortages of the highly skilled workers, as well as competition between the developed nations for such skills, will require creative measures to attract immigrant workers. Some measures may involve increasing numbers of foreign students in the targeted post-secondary enrollments, and opening opportunities for them to work and remain in Canada after completion of the program (Cheung, Guillemette, & Mobasher-Fard, 2012).

Adaptability and ongoing learning are assets in the future of work

According to researchers, future workers will need to be adaptable lifelong learners, as even the most elementary occupations will require a combination of transferable and specific skills (e.g., independent problem solving, organization, communication and planning). Together with other countries, government of Canada (2010) recognizes that digital literacy—the ability to use digital technology and the Internet, to gather, manage, and evaluate information, to create documents in multiple media forms, and to communicate at distance—is a prerequisite for creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. This needs to be leveraged by the so-called soft—or 21^st century—transdisciplinary skills (Freiman et al., 2017).

Many working-age Canadians lack adequate skills in problem solving in technology-rich environments (Statistics Canada, 2013). Among them, the proportion is higher in underrepresented groups in the Canadian workforce, such as aboriginal population, immigrants, linguistic minorities, and 16-24 year olds. As this gap risks being widened, Digital Canada 150 strategy encouraged more post-secondary enrolment in technology-related programs by underrepresented groups, such as women and Aboriginal Canadians (Government of Canada, 2014). Women, indigenous youth, and youth living in poverty are especially unexploited labour resources in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) sector (Brookfield, 2017).

Indeed, nowadays, workplace tasks are more complex and reliant on reasoning, rather than on physical labour. With many routine jobs being done by or with computers, workers are increasingly required to deal with non-routine tasks and engage in expert thinking as they handle vast amounts of information and engage in complex communication, often at distance and under unpredictable conditions. To enhance the new employees’ chances to successfully integrate into the workplace, companies may utilize a ‘year in industry’ internship program (Hewitt, 2016).

(Re)Training opportunities needed for the workforce

Having more advanced and automated systems in a workplace does not mean that the human operator is absolved of the need for skilled decision-making and troubleshooting; even when technology is introduced to reduce the tedium of the job task, the worker still needs to monitor the automated process while critically assessing its outcomes. This also means that more resources (i.e., time, money) need to be invested in the operator’s training in three areas: (a) crisis-resolution skills (e.g., when the machine fails or performs contrary to expectations), (b) engagement with the repetitive and boring tasks, and (c) development of the right attitude—viewing the workplace as a system where humans and technologies work as a team (Hoffman & Militello, 2009).

At the same time, new issues arise from these trends—the more intelligent and helpful technology becomes, the more difficulty its users have in understanding what and why it does what it does—people can become ‘de-skilled.’ Counter measures may involve self-directed “just-in-time” learning, organized through mini online learning modules and videos. Peer-to-peer training and coaching can also be provided on demand through different online options. These features allow organizations to accelerate speed of achieving proficiency in complex job skills (Attri & Wu, 2016).

Apart from those who lack work, school, or informal opportunities to develop skills, the individuals and organizations most at risk are those who (a) cannot adapt, (b) are not connected and not flexible, (c) do not see opportunities in change, and (d) do not have the means (e.g., funds, connections) to enter the digital marketplace. Counter-measures should focus on (a) youth-at-risk—to minimize production of low-skilled individuals; (b) government incentives—to re-educate the adult population; and (c) redesign of jobs—to increase demands for skilled workers.

Initiatives that open more training opportunities in basic digital skills for those who need help exist in Canada. In Atlantic Canada, the CBDC Restigouche has coordinated the Digital Essential Skills in Rural Small Businesses project by creating a bilingual training model organized around the use of software and applications such as email, while the Internet is used specifically in targeted job-related tasks. In New Brunswick, along with other jurisdictions, the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education offers a training in digital literacy for adult learners. Targeting specifically underrepresented groups, a joint federal-provincial initiative Canada-B.C. Job Grant is now underway.

With the Digital Literacy strategy yet to be developed for Canada, the future of workforce preparation requirements call for a country-wide educational transformation that includes the creation of post-secondary institution/private sector/community alliances to ensure that Canadians embrace digital literacy both as a goal and as a vehicle for success.

AUTHOR BIOS

Dragana Martinovic is a Professor at University of Windsor, where she leads the Human Development Technologies Research Group. In her research, she  explores ways in which technology can improve teaching and learning outcomes, and the digital literacy skills needed for a successful learner and worker of the 21^st century.

Viktor Freiman is a Professor at the Université de Moncton. He is Director of the CompéTI.CA Partnership Development Network on digital competences lifelong continuum development. He investigates how to foster the development of digital literacy through collaboration between schools/postsecondary institutions/workforce and what role soft-skills could play in this process.

References

Attri, R., & Wu, W. (2016). E-learning strategies at workplace that support speed to proficiency in complex skills. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on e-Learning.

Brookfield Institute. (2017). State of Digital Literacy in Canada.

CEDEFOP. (2012). Future skills supply and demand in Europe: Forecast 2012.

Cheung, C., Guillemette, Y., & Mobasher-Fard, S. (2012). Tertiary education: Developing skills for innovation and long-term growth in Canada.

Freiman, V. et al. (2017). Towards the life-long continuum of digital competences: exploring combination of soft-skills and digital skills development, INTED2017 Proceedings, 9518-9527.

Government of Canada. (2010). Improving Canada’s digital advantage strategies for sustainable prosperity.

Government of Canada. (2014). Building Digital Skills for Tomorrow.

Hewitt, A. (2016). Developing Canada’s future workforce: A survey of large private-sector employers.

Hoffman, R.R., & Militello, L.G. (2009). Perspectives on Cognitive Task Analysis: Historical Origins and Modern Communities of Practice. Psychology Press/Taylor and Francis.

Martinovic, D., & Freiman, V. (2013). Digital skills development for future needs of the Canadian labour market (pp. 1-71). Final report to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Statistics Canada. (2013). https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-555-x/89-555-x2013001-eng.htm

Changing how we develop skills, measure them and apply them in the workforce

By Patrick Snider

Canada is heading towards a period of disruption due to technology. We need to prepare our workforce with the skills necessary to make this transition.

This year, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has been conducting a project with partners in Canadian higher education institutes, businesses and other stakeholder groups to examine the needs of the future workforce. We have conducted a series of roundtables across the country to solicit their perspectives on this issue, bringing together experts and business leaders, as well as synthesizing together reports from other researchers on this topic.

According to many of the leading economic analysts – including the OECD, Brookfield Institute, McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), C.D. Howe, and Employment and Social Development Canada – the coming decade will see significant disruption in the way Canadians work. Estimates vary, but out of the current workforce between seven million and 11 million existing jobs are expected to see a significant share of their activities eliminated or radically transformed through automation and artificial intelligence. More contentious is the estimate of jobs that will be eliminated entirely, which range from a negligible number, to millions of jobs. What is certain is that there will be significant changes to the way that Canadians work in the coming years.

While this disruption presents challenges, the upside to automation can’t be ignored. It is estimated by MGI that the increase in productivity from automation could add up to 1.5% to GDP growth. Growth means new jobs – according to figures from our partners, over 30% of all jobs created in the 1990s during that technology boom did not exist at all previously. Looking forward, we may not know what kinds of jobs will be created in response to technologies that are only just emerging, but we can say with high confidence they will.

So what does this mean for skills in the Canadian workforce?

Canada’s existing skill training programs are designed around assumptions of low turnover, long-term careers, and a direct progression from primary and secondary education, to post-secondary job training, to employment. This worked for the old, industrial model of employment based on specific jobs with a long tenure and little change, but it is at risk of no longer functioning as the pace of technological chance increases, jobs are altered or eliminated, and more business sectors are disrupted.

Our partners identified a number of challenges to finding the skills needed to make the transition towards the new, more automated workforce of the future. The most pressing issue is the need to measure the workforce, to understand the impact of changing technology in a more detailed way.

This needs to go beyond simply listing the jobs that are available, and the majors people graduated in, and to look at the full supply of skills available and in demand. Looking forward, we see more job mobility and examples of students crossing traditional boundaries in education and employment. Employers reported looking for mixed skill sets, combining social skills and technology skills, or mathematical and business expertise. Repeatedly in our conversations, the topic of improved soft skills came up just as often as the issues with finding graduates with the specific technical expertise that was required.

Better measure supply and demand to optimize pathways to employment

We see the diversity in outcomes reflected in data around STEM employment. In US census data from 2014, nearly one quarter of workers in “STEM jobs” graduated from a non-STEM program, and only one third of STEM graduates wound up in a STEM job, with the other two-thirds working in other fields. Businesses, educators and students need better data when it comes to the different pathways their education can take them, especially the directions that are not immediately obvious.

This is why our partners ask for better measures of the specific skills that students acquire, and the skills that jobs use. Mapping the labour market in those terms allows a greater ability for all participants to find opportunities, measure the supply and demand of skills in the economy, and to plan out their future with greater precision.

This new view of skills and employment relates directly to the next priority our panellists outlined. Current educational cycles are long, measured in years, based around an industrial era education that is meant to last a lifetime in a single role. If employers are going to participate in the lifelong training of employees, then that requires more short-duration programs without long absences from the workforce. This means supporting educational institutions in developing programs, such as micro-credentials, professional certificates, and targeted technical training, which fit with the previous model of filling in more specific skill gaps.

Maintaining skills by creating more opportunities for ongoing learning

Core skills need to be maintained as well. We see in existing data, the longer workers are out of education, and the less support they receive, the more their core literacy and numeracy degrades over time. Creating more opportunities to maintain those skills is another priority.

This does not eliminate the need for existing educational programs – there is still a strong value seen in the skills that result from existing college, undergraduate and postgraduate programs. But these are going to have to increasingly coexist with other pathways to acquiring the same skills, mixing self-directed education, badges, micro-credentials and other opportunities for learning.

These changes will require a new attitude by many in the worlds of education and business. Lifelong learning is not yet a part of the culture in either our workplaces or schools, but it can be. This needs to start early – the K-12 system needs to embrace the idea that students need to view their education as an ongoing personal investment. Students require entrepreneurship education, not just in the narrow sense of starting a business but in the broader sense of continually investing in skills, looking for opportunities and seeing ways they can meet demand. These are important considerations for all future citizens, as self-employment and new modes of working increasingly become the norm.

These new modes of studying and working would require changes to financing training as well. Already governments at the federal and provincial levels have taken steps to improve access – this is crucial, since many lower income Canadians have difficulty reaching higher education. But new models need to be explored in addition to existing programs, such as supporting business investment in training. No one else in the economy has a better understanding of the skills in demand. The issue is recognizing the work that businesses do to provide training, and mitigating risks such as employee departure and poaching. By providing a flexible set of incentives, that recognize both formal training programs and the informal training that many smaller businesses engage in, skill development can be encouraged as well as better measured and understood. By lowering risks, businesses can invest with greater confidence.

Building the skill development system needed for Canada’s future workforce is not a simple matter, and will require a long-term program of changing how we develop skills, measure them, and apply them in the workforce. But it is a challenge that will define our economy for the coming decades, and whether technology becomes an asset or not.

AUTHOR BIO

Patrick Snider is the Director of Policy for Skills and Immigration at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. He completed the Bachelor of the Humanities program at Carleton University in Ottawa, and went on to a Master’s in Political Science at that same institution, with a focus on political theory. His work has included a range of policy studies on topics as diverse as healthcare, cooperative businesses, education and immigration. In those positions, he used his background to identify issues and offer solutions to political questions.

Fighting the knowledge gap to increase young people’s awareness of the diversity in the construction industry

By Madison Tiller

What jobs do you think of when you hear the term “construction?”

Words like « carpenter, » « plumber, » or « electrician » may come to mind. And for many high school students, this is where their knowledge of the construction industry ends.

While electrical, carpentry and plumbing are great choices, they are far from the only options that exist in the industry. Occupations such as ironworker, boilermaker or crane operator are not usually on youths’ radar when it comes to potential careers. Many students, parents and educators are unaware that there are over 100 different jobs to explore in the construction sector.

Why is there this lack of awareness?

“While it is hard to know for sure, it can be partially attributed to the stigma that surrounds the construction industry,” explains Trent Soholt, Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Construction Sector Council (NSCSC), a non-profit organization that supports Nova Scotia’s Industrial-Commercial-Institutional (ICI) construction sector. “The industry battles a reputation of being ‘second tier’ in comparison to other sectors, often those that require a university education. Parents may feel familiar with “construction” through watching popular renovation shows, but these shows are not a true representation of the industry. This combination of factors contributes to the lack of discussion around jobs in the construction industry when it’s time for young people to begin thinking about careers.”

The NSCSC recognized this knowledge gap while travelling to career fairs across the province. “When students would come to our booth, they were surprised at how many opportunities there were in our sector,” says Soholt. NSCSC staff also recognized how difficult it is to engage students with only information-dense brochures and handouts. These events, along with the organization acquiring a large empty warehouse, led to the creation of the Trades Exhibition Hall – a one-of-a-kind career awareness facility located in Halifax.

The NSCSC Trades Exhibition Hall offers high school and junior high students, teachers, career counsellors and jobseekers the unique opportunity to explore careers in ICI construction via hands-on, interactive learning. During half or full-day sessions, visitors try their hand at various skilled trades and management occupations by taking part in activities guided by experienced industry professionals.

The Sector Council, with support from industry and government, has transformed its empty warehouse into a simulated construction site containing 14 interactive booths, each representing ICI trades and occupations. Booths include: boilermaker, bricklayer, carpenter, electrician, elevator constructor, finishing trades, insulator, ironworker, non-destructive tester, operating engineer, pipe trades, sheet metal worker and various management occupations represented in the “management trailer.” Each booth is operated by an industry professional who provides information about their occupation and walk visitors through hands-on demonstrations and activities. Instead of just reading a brochure or hearing a presentation about becoming a bricklayer, participants can speak-one-on-one with an apprentice, journeyperson or manager about what they do and even lay a brick or two. The Trades Exhibition Hall also contains state-of-the-art simulators, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the virtual world of welding and painting.

“We wanted to create a space that feels like an actual job site,” says Soholt. Prior to entering the Hall visitors must undergo a safety orientation and are required to wear full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) while in the Hall. “We have hard hats, safety glasses and slip-on steel toe protection on-hand for students and visitors who come through the Hall,” he adds.

Since opening early 2014, the NSCSC Trades Exhibition Hall has seen more than 4,500 visitors come through its doors. Visitors’ ages range from 14-50+, with grades 10 and 11 being the most common attendees. Over 60 schools from nine school boards all over Nova Scotia have made the journey to visit the Hall with bookings received up to 2019. The Nova Scotia Construction Sector Council host an annual two-day Aboriginal Youth Skilled Trades Fair in the Trades Exhibition Hall, along with visits from other special interest groups, such as the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia (ISANS) and Women Unlimited. The Trades Exhibition Hall operations are funded by the Nova Scotia Apprenticeship Agency.

When asked why he thinks the Hall has been so successful, Soholt says it all comes down to the interactive elements. “People, especially young people, really respond well to hands-on learning. We still provide them with the same career information we did before, but now we incorporate it into activities that get the students involved. And it’s not only the students who respond well to the hands-on; it’s teachers, parents, guidance counsellors and career seekers of any age. When we initially opened, we thought we would have about one visit per month, and now we are booking two to three visits per week!”

For more information about the Nova Scotia Construction Sector Council, or the Nova Scotia Construction Sector Council’s Trades Exhibition Hall, visit nscsc.ca.

AUTHOR BIO

Madison Tiller is the Communications Specialist at the Nova Scotia Construction Sector Council where she co-ordinates tours of the NSCSC Trades Exhibition Hall.

As career development practitioners, we can become leaders in countering the negative effects of the aging mindset that permeates our culture

By Elizabeth Mahler and John Thompson

Like most people in our culture, career development practitioners are subject to the influence of commonly held ideas. To illustrate, we offer the following quiz.

A woman pays a visit to a career counsellor and provides the following information: she recently left a position and is now technically unemployed; she’s in good health with plenty of energy; she believes she has another 20 years of work in her, but would prefer employment that is both less physically demanding and more meaningful; and she senses that she has a unique chance to do something different, but doesn’t know what that is, or how to find out. Consequently, she is feeling discouraged.

Which of the following statements is most likely to be true about this person?

1. The client is 40 years old and was recently laid off.
2. The client is 50 years old and recently quit her job after being diagnosed with a neurological disease that will begin to seriously affect her in about twenty years.
3. The client is 60 years old.

If you share our culture’s aging mindset, we assume that you have chosen answer #1 or #2. We don’t expect people who are 60 years of age to be looking for guidance around the next 20 years of their working lives. We expect them to be thinking about retirement.

This 60-year-old woman can be said to be in a state of transition, but transition from what to what? Our culture provides developmental roadmaps for younger people, but there are few mainstream models of growth and development offered to those over 60. This made sense when life spans were shorter, but changing demographics call this thinking into question.

The results of an increasing life expectancy

A recent report from Statistics Canada (Decady & Greenberg, 2014) details the increase in the life expectancy of Canada’s population over the past century:

• In 2011, Canadians lived an average of 81.7 years. This is an increase of 24.6 years since 1921.
• In 1921, life expectancy at age 55 was 20 years. Today, a 55-year-old can expect to live, on average, an additional 29 years (to age 84).

What’s happening is a “Longevity Revolution.”  Starting with the baby boomers, Canadians have been given a “Longevity Dividend” (Olshansky, 2006).  This gift of time is generating a new life stage that manifests between middle age and elderhood. While culturally we have not yet settled on a label to describe this new stage, potential names are emerging, including the following:

• second adulthood or adulthood II (Bateson, 2010);
• encore (Freedman, 2007);
• the third act (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2009); and
• the third age (Sadler, 2006).

Regardless of what “it” is called, cultural anthropologist Bateson (2010) suggests that “we have opened a new space partway through the life course, a second and different kind of adulthood, that proceeds old age, and as a result every stage of life is undergoing change.” She calls it “a new developmental stage … not an extension tacked on to old age.”

A century has passed since a phenomenon of this magnitude created the need for a shift in our thinking about human development. It was only after adolescence was acknowledged as a separate developmental stage between childhood and adulthood in the early 20^th century that social systems such as high schools became integral parts of our culture. We are beginning to experience a similar phenomenon when considering the implications of an unprecedented longevity dividend on both individuals and society. This includes how we define, discuss and prepare for retirement.

Rueckert (2006) warns that, “You have to be careful with your metaphors.” Metaphors have a very powerful effect on how we define situations, and assess what the situation calls for. Our society uses the metaphor of retirement to conceptualize the end of the working life of older adults. To retire is to remove oneself from the field. We also use idioms to convey this idea of withdrawal. Put out to pasture. Implicit in this language of retirement is the idea that the time for accepting challenges and making meaningful contributions has passed.

This metaphor is problematic for a society that has the resources to enable individuals to lead healthy and active lives well into their 80s and 90s. That makes for a lot of years of withdrawal. It also makes for a lot of lost opportunities for both the individuals involved and our society as a whole.

Helping older workers transition into a new life stage

Career development practitioners have a lot to offer individuals who are transitioning to a post-60 working life. To do this, our profession needs to find a new name (or metaphor) to describe what is becoming a new and meaningful period of career development and engagement.

Consider the word “graduation.” Graduation marks a transition, but not as a process of withdrawal. Suzanne Cook’s (2015) term redirection also implies a transition process. Both these words indicate forward movement into a new phase of life that is worthy of esteem and ambition; one that offers individuals an opportunity to continue growing and developing.

As career practitioners, we need to understand that many older adults have the chance to move into another important phase of life. This phase includes contributing through work, even if this contribution takes a new form. This new way of thinking recognizes that a person’s career path does not stop at age 60. Career practitioners have the rare opportunity to create a new understanding of that path – and of the length of time it occupies in one’s life.

It is not the responsibility of the career development profession to solve this problem of language, and the related effect of metaphors on perceptions. But we can play a significant role. We can see the negative effects of the aging mindset that permeates our culture. This is a challenge we are well equipped to address. We already have the expertise to become leaders in this effort.

For these reasons, the time has come to put the idea of retirement, at least as it is currently understood, out to pasture.

AUTHOR BIOS

Elizabeth Mahler spent 25 years within continuing education, higher education, corporate and K-12 educational environments, leading program development and strategic planning efforts. She is currently an Associate Teaching Professor in the Graduate School of Education at Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies (Boston, MA).  

John Thompson spent 30 years facilitating learning and decision-making in workplace settings. He holds a PhD in Human Development and Applied Psychology. At age 66, he is pursuing an encore career as a career development practitioner.

References

Bateson, M. C. (2010). Composing a further life: The age of active wisdom. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Cook, S. L. (2015). “Redirection: An extension of career during retirement”. The Gerontologist, 55(3), 360-373.

Decady, Y. & Greenberg, L. (2014, July). “Ninety years of change in life expectancy”. Health at a Glance. Statistics Canada Catalogue, No. 82-624-X.

Freedman, M. (2007). Encore: Finding work that matters in the second half of life.  New York, NY:  Public Affairs.

Lawrence-Lightfoot, S. (2009). The third chapter: Passion, risk, and adventure in the 25 years after 50.  New York, NY: Sarah Crichton Books.

Olshansky, S. J., Perry, D., Miller, R.A., & Butler, R. N. (March, 2006). “In pursuit of the longevity dividend: What should we be doing to prepare for the unprecedented aging of humanity?” The Scientist, 20(3), 28-36.

Rueckert, W. H. (2006). “Metaphor and reality: A meditation on man, nature, and words”. KB Journal, 2(2). Retrieved from http://www.kbjournal.org/spring2006

Sadler, W.A. (Spring 2006).  “Changing life options: Uncovering the riches of the third age”. The LLI Review, Inaugural edition.

What career development professionals can do to prepare young jobseekers for a labour market defined by precarious employment

By Donnalee Bell

When I was doing my undergraduate degree in the 1990s, I had a History of Labour professor that had an apocalyptic fear of ATMs. Instead of being innocuous places to get cash quick, he believed that ATMs would eliminate full-time, decent teller positions globally. As a result, he implored us not to use them. I’m still a bit wary of ATMs today.

Almost 25 years later, it seems his prediction didn’t quite pan out. There may be fewer teller positions overall but, like so many technological advances created to automate work throughout history, ATMs actually created more jobs than they replaced.

So, what does this story have to do with the careers of the next generations of job-seekers? Perhaps, quite a bit. According to Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s Second Machine Age (2014), my professor wasn’t exactly wrong, just ahead of his time. Since 2000 there has been what they call the “great decoupling”, meaning that developments in technology are no longer resulting in aggregate job creation, but rather been responsible for sluggish employment growth. Combine this with shifts in business practices (i.e. downsizing, outsourcing) and the rise of the gig economy and Generation(s) Next finds themselves transitioning to work in a world that lacks dependable employment and that, for many, does not pay a living wage (Zizys, 2014).

Precarious work, the “new normal”?

In Canada, the dominant result of these trends has been a growing rate of underemployment, with more young adults either overqualified for their job or unable to find enough work hours to comprise full-time employment. The latest statistics show that 40% of university graduates are underemployed, often due to precarious work arrangements (PBO, 2015). Foster (2012) found that the number of Canadian 15- to 29-year-olds working in non-permanent jobs (i.e., jobs that are temporary, contract, part-time, low paid and low skilled) has nearly doubled from 6.9% in 1997 to 11.6% in 2011. According to the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), a stage of precarious work has become the “new normal” for young adults transitioning from school to work (2014).

All of this adds up to economic and psychological challenges for m. Research shows that the hallmarks of a full transition to adulthood are being delayed. In a 2014 survey of Canadian millennials, 43% of 30- to 33-year-olds remained reliant on their parents for financial support and 29% of those aged 25 to 29 still lived with their parents (Carrick, 2014). Youth are also reporting psychological impacts. For youth aged 18 to 24, nearly 90% reported feeling uncomfortable levels of stress; 86% in this age group attributed the stress to underemployment (Sun Life, 2012).

This “brave new” labour market calls for individuals to market themselves differently, manage personal finances to ride out fluctuations in pay, adapt constantly and create work where it may not already exist.  This is a tall order for anyone especially for new entrants who may not have the networks, skills portfolio, experience or the finances to mitigate ebbs and flows in employment. So, what can career development professionals do to prepare Generation(s) Next for this labour market?

• Be hip – Not in that “I’m so cool” way, but by keeping current on emergent trends in the labour market.  Have you heard of a Certified YouTube Audience Growth Expert? A Vertical Farmer? A Nano-Medic?  Neither had I until researching this article. While it is impossible to stay ahead of the curve on all emerging occupations, “thinking-sector” can help you to know what’s trending. And, be open to your clients knowing more than you. My son (Gen Z) and his millennial music teacher recently enlightened me on careers in video game music composition.
• Prepare them for gigs – In Good Gigs: A Fairer Future for the UK’s Gig Economy, the RSA Action and Research Centre (2017) found that despite the concerns about workers’ rights in the gig economy, many young people are attracted to the idea of gigging. To support clients here, we need to know the risks to workers’ rights, but also be savvy about using digital self-marketing and entrepreneurial approaches to work development. Jobseekers are now coding interactive resumes to stand out from the crowd (e.g. http://www.rleonardi.com/interactive-resume/)! We need to know about the tools used for “gigging” to help our clients profile themselves in this rapidly changing environment.
• Advocate – There is a growing concern about the erosion of decent work worldwide. Advocacy for decent work arrangements (i.e. work that is productive, safe, secure and provides fair income with social protections for workers and their families) could become a core piece of our work. Workforce development and partnership building are a part of this. We’ll likely be out of our offices more and develop working alliances not just with our clients, but with employers, community groups, industry associations, etc.
• Encourage skill collecting and self-directed learning – Skills are the currency of this labour market.  Workers will continuously need to upgrade skills or risk losing out on opportunities. The Foundation for Young Australians’ report The New Work Smarts: Thriving in the New Work Order (2017) predicts that by 2030 young people will need to spend more work hours learning than ever before because of the need to upgrade skills and that those who know how to learn will be at a competitive advantage. Career professionals will need to be learning coaches, supporting clients to find opportunities for learning and demonstrating their skills.
• Inspire and instill hope – Finally, this labour market can equate to unmet expectations and a loss of hope for many young adults. Although the challenges are real, the news is not all bad. Research shows that graduates (especially post-secondary graduates) are generally doing well financially five to eight years after graduation (Finnie et al., 2016) and those with post-secondary credentials are accessing high-skilled work (Frenette and Frank, 2016). It’s important that we help our clients to balance the challenges they face with the opportunities inherent in today’s labour market. We need to help Generation(s) Next to see themselves as able and resilient and to nurture real hope as they move in the direction of their preferred future.

… and to remember the lessons of the ATM: there can be opportunity in the midst of change and uncertainty!

AUTHOR BIO

Donnalee Bell is the Managing Director of the Canadian Career Development Foundation and has been researching about and supporting the careers of young adults for over 20 years.

REFERENCES

Balaram, B. Warden, J. and Wallace-Stephens, F. (2017). Good gigs: A Fairer Future for the UK’s Gig Economy. RSA: Action and Research Centre.

Byrnjolfsson, E. and McAfee, A. (2014). The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Carrick, R. “Gen Y’s lack of financial independence is striking.” The Globe and Mail. May 26, 2014.

Eurofound (2014). Mapping youth transitions in Europe. Publications Office of the European Union.

Finnie, R., Afshar, K., Bozkurt, E., Miyairi, M., Pavlic, D. (2016). Barista or Better: New Evidence on the Earnings of Post-Secondary Education graduate: A Tax Linkage Approach.  “Executive Summary.”  Education Policy Research Initiative and the University of Ottawa.

The Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) (2017). The New Work Smarts: Thriving in the New Work Order. FYA.

Foster, K. (2012) Youth Employment and Un(der) Employment in Canada: More Than a Temporary Problem? Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Frenette, M. and Frank, K. (2017). Do Postsecondary Graduates Land High-skilled Jobs? Statistics Canada.

Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (2015), Labour Market Assessment.

Sun Life Financial. 2012 Canadian Health Index Report. Sun Life Financial, 2012.

Zizys, T. (2014) Better Work: The path to good jobs is through employers. Metcalf Foundation.