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ContactPoint is pleased to announce the launch of its Reports & Trends section that allows career practitioners to more readily access information that impacts their work and their clients. The new section includes fact sheets, policy papers and statistical reports about:

• Labour market information
• Recruitment
• Employment policy
• Workplace conditions
• Education and training
• Migration
• Skills development
• Foreign qualifications
• Specific labour market participants (e.g., youth, women, older workers, people with disabilities and new Canadians).

We are gathering this material from over 30 content providers across Canada and the world. Publishers include government, not-for-profit community organizations, think tanks, financial institutions and public opinion groups. Material is updated on a weekly basis with typically 10 new items added per week.

Here are the highlights of two reports that are currently available:

Older Workers in the Labour Market

TD Economics, a division of TD Canada Trust, publishes labour, finance and industry-related information products. TD Economics published a special report in February about older workers in the labour force. The authors argue in Older workers stampeded into the labour market that since the recovery began in mid-2009 individuals aged 60 years and older have accounted for about one-third of all net new job gains.

This is especially striking considering older workers accounted for just 8% of the total labour force. It is explained that nationally most of the job gains during the recovery have been concentrated in service-based industries such as professional, scientific and technical services and health care. While older workers recorded substantial gains in the each of these rapidly growing sectors, they made the most gains in the retail sector.

The report notes that several factors are fuelling the increased participation of older workers in the labour force including: the rise of non-standard employment arrangements, better health outcomes later in life allowing older Canadians to work longer, the end of mandatory retirement, advances in technology which have led to fewer physically intensive occupations, shortages of skilled labour, and having to work because the economic downturn has hurt retirement savings.

Career Preferences of Boys and Girls

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), formed in 1961 and representing 34 countries, strives to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. The OECD published What kinds of careers do boys and girls expect for themselves in 2011 based upon data that asked 15-year-old students what they thought they would be doing in early adulthood.

The report states that in almost all OECD countries, girls are more ambitious than boys. On average, girls were 11% more likely than boys to expect to work in high-status careers such as legislators, senior officials, managers and professionals. The report also notes that in recent years, girls in many countries have caught up with or even surpassed boys in science proficiency.

Better performance in science or mathematics among girls, however, does not necessarily mean that girls want to pursue all types of science-related careers. In fact, careers in engineering or computing still attract relatively few girls. On average among OECD countries, fewer than 5% of girls, but 18% of boys, expected to be working in engineering or computing as young adults. Although few girls expected to enter some science careers in every OECD country, more girls than boys reported that they wanted to pursue a career in health services, a science profession with a caring component.

The authors mention that Charles and Grusky’s concept of cultural gender essentialism may explain these patterns. According to this theory, the preferences of women and men, and subsequently their employment paths, are rooted in cultural and institutional phenomena. The ideology of gender essentialism represents women as “more competent than men in service, nurturance and social interaction.”

CERIC hopes that ContactPoint’s new Reports & Trends section will prove to be a valuable resource for career service professionals.

Last Updated on Thursday, 26 July 2012 15:05

By Karen Penrose

The aim of the Get the life you love campaign (including National Career Development Week) is to promote public awareness of career development. The campaign encourages all Australians to develop the skills to manage their own life, learning and work across the lifespan. The campaign is an initiative of the Career Industry Council of Australia and has been funded by the federal government since 2006.

Although the celebration week (National Career Development Week) is held in the third week of May each year, the campaign is a yearlong initiative which supports careers events held throughout the year.

In Australia today it is of increasing importance to link education and training to the world of work and support young people to make informed choices about their future education, training and employment options.

From the beginning of the campaign it became apparent that while careers advisers in most Australian educational institutions have career development qualifications, most did not have “event management experience” and many found it a challenge to develop creative ideas for events and activities—especially events to engage young people. Consequently, the campaign provides not just encouragement but also the ideas and easy-to-use resources to people working with Australians of all ages to organize career development activities. While a large percentage of registered events each year are organized by qualified careers advisers, approximately 25% are organized by people working in community programs and government departments.

Feedback has indicated that the most significant reason for the continued and growing support of the campaign has been the provision of easy-to-use resources that have been developed by the campaign and which are available for download through the campaign website. These resources include:

• Career Factsheets—including 13 student Career Factsheets; 10 workforce Career Factsheets, three Career Seminar and Expo Factsheets/Worksheets as well as Event Templates
• Videos (28 career development message videos on our YouTube Channel—AusCareerWeek)
• Downloadable Chatterbox activities (for younger students)
• Event ideas and “How to” Templates to help people to organize a career development event or activity

Feedback is regularly received that these resources have provided “the confidence to organize activities.”

In the early years, the campaign was based solely on the provision of the inspiration and resources, however to assist in the development of our understanding of the requirements of careers advisers and everyday Australians, a “direct-engagement” approach has been incorporated into the Campaign. This has resulted in the campaign team hosting a career development information booth at National Careers Expos and the team organizing a series of Get the life you love Community Forums around the country. This interaction with students making career decisions and adults in career transition has assisted us to develop new resources for the campaign.

The Community Forums were designed to inspire students and individuals to Get the life you lovethrough understanding that they need to know their interests, skills, options and opportunities to make a successful transition into an increasingly complex labour market. The Get the life you love Community Forums have been extremely successful, with students reporting an increased “motivation to investigate their career options” as a result of attending the Forum. The Forums, hosted by a well-known MC, include three celebrity guest speakers (TV, radio or sportspeople— that students recognize and respect) and six local “every day” people with inspiring career stories.  Guest speakers are asked to draw from their own personal career journey to inspire and motivate students.

Karen Penrose is the Project Director of the Get the life you love campaign (including National Career Development Week). Karen has over 15 years experience managing national careers projects. She has written, edited and published national careers and recruitment publications and developed career resources including factsheets, templates and video resources. More information about the Australian Get the life you love campaign (including National Career Development Week) is available on the campaign website—getthelifeyoulove.com.au.