Canada’s skills gap would benefit from coordinated labour market data

A recent article in Maclean’s takes a closer look at the ongoing debates surrounding Canada’s skills gap, or mismatch as some put it, noting that for students and job-seekers, it is difficult to know what training one should take in order to find a career. Data on employment outlooks and wages from province to province are hard to find, and in some cases, inaccurate. Employers are spending less and less on employee training, and at the same time are calling on PSE institutions to do more job-ready training. Canada has pledged to spend more in order to develop more robust job market surveys, but that data won’t be available for some time. And, as the article’s author notes, “meanwhile, policy-makers and students will be forced to rely on a hodgepodge of third-party job surveys, anecdotal information and gut instinct to figure out how employment in this country works.” Clearer labour market information would greatly increase the employability of many educated, but un- or under-employed Canadians. Maclean’s