Job seekers, students, apprentices, employers, policy experts and the federal and provincial/territorial governments all need Canadian labour market information to make the best possible decisions with respect to careers, training, hiring, identifying best practices and using public funds.

While several sources of Canadian labour market information are available, the evidence heard by the Committee broadly suggests that there are still a number of gaps, and all orders of government and other stakeholders should work together to come up with a better Canadian labour market information system.

A. Recent studies

Over the course of its proceedings, the Committee identified two recent studies regarding the information available on the Canadian labour market. The key findings of these studies are presented in this sub-chapter.

In May 2009, the Advisory Panel on Labour Market Information, led by Don Drummond, released a report, Working Together to Build a Better Labour Market Information System for Canada, which includes a total of 69 recommendations in seven areas:

1. Governance: The Forum of Labour Market Ministers should assume the leadership role and provide the broad strategic direction needed to manage and coordinate Canada’s overall labour market information system.
2. Data collection: Statistics Canada should fill in the main gaps in the national labour market information system and work with the provinces/territories to fill the gaps that are more specific to their circumstances.
3. Data analysis and interpretation: The various orders of government should improve the analysis and interpretation of labour market data to make sure the information is relevant, well targeted to different types of users and easy to understand.
4. Raising awareness of labour market information: Once a better labour market information system has been built, a major effort needs to be undertaken by the Forum of Labour Market Ministers, Statistics Canada and the federal and provincial/territorial governments to ensure that Canadians are aware of the available labour market information and its various uses.
5. Data dissemination: The Forum of Labour Market Ministers, Statistics Canada and the federal and provincial/territorial governments should improve the dissemination of labour market information by making it more easily accessible, timely and user-friendly.
6. Funding: The federal and provincial/territorial governments should contribute financially to improving the labour market information system. Statistics Canada should provide all basic national labour market statistics free of charge on its website.
7. Implementation: The Forum of Labour Market Ministers should produce a report on the implementation status of each of the recommendations contained in the Advisory Panel on Labour Market Information report within one year.[65]

At that time, the Advisory Panel on Labour Market Information estimated that the annual cost of implementing its recommendations would be $49.4 million (in 2009 dollars).[66]

In June 2014, Don Drummond released a second study, Wanted: Good Canadian Labour Market Information, stating that even though about two thirds of the recommendations in the Advisory Panel on Labour Market Information report have been or are being implemented by the federal and provincial/territorial governments, no organization is currently responsible for coordinating the pan-Canadian labour market information system. Moreover, almost five years since the report was released, the Forum of Labour Market Ministers has still not prepared a follow-up report on implementing the recommendations.[67]

When asked about how ESDC has acted on the Advisory Panel on Labour Market Information’s recommendations, ESDC Deputy Minister Ian Shugart said that the Department followed up on the report as a whole rather than on each of the recommendations. Further to the report’s release, the Department has worked with Statistics Canada, Finance Canada and the Bank of Canada to improve the quality and scope of Canadian labour market data. Mr. Shugart gave the example of job vacancy data recently developed with Statistics Canada.[68]

B. Data on labour demand and supply in Canada

In order to make good public policy decisions with regard to the labour market, the federal and provincial/territorial governments need current data on labour demand by employers and labour supply by job seekers by region, industry and occupation. Without these data, it may be rather difficult to effectively address issues surrounding the matching of job seekers with available jobs in some regions, industries and occupations.

The evidence heard by the Committee suggests that data on labour demand are not as reliable or consistent as data on labour supply. For instance, Mostafa Askari, Assistant Parliamentary Budget Officer, Economic and Fiscal Analysis, Library of Parliament, said that while there are currently very good data on labour supply in Canada which are being used by the employment insurance program for different regions, there are not any data of equivalent quality on labour demand.[69]

The ESDC Minister and Deputy Minister acknowledged that the Canadian labour market information system is currently inadequate and could be improved.

I’ll just repeat what I’ve been saying as long as I’ve been in this position. We have an inadequate system of labour market information. What we do know from it is that we do not have a general labour shortage in Canada. We do not have a general labour shortage in this country. If we did have a general labour shortage, it would be reflected in the price of labour. We would have seen faster increases in wages than we have since the downturn. However, I think the aggregate national labour market information is not adequately identifying the skills gaps in particular regions and industries. Every business organization of employers in the country identifies skills gaps or skills shortages as their most important challenge.[70]

Hon. Jason Kenney
ESDC

We are not satisfied, as public servants in the department, that we are currently providing the government, Parliament, the country, employers, etc., with labour market information and learning information as good as needs to be done, and we are committed to doing that.[71]

Ian Shugart
ESDC

Jean-Denis Fréchette, Parliamentary Budget Officer, Library of Parliament, told the Committee that research by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which is based on currently available aggregate labour market data, does not reveal any evidence in support of a national labour shortage in Canada. He did say that this does not necessarily mean there are no problems matching job seekers with jobs available in some regions, industries or occupations.[72] Mr. Askari added that the detailed data needed to answer these questions were not currently available.[73]

Mr. Fréchette gave three examples of gaps in labour demand data. First, no job vacancy data extend back further than the first quarter of 2004 and therefore do not go over a full business cycle. Second, job vacancy data come from three main sources: Statistics Canada, the Conference Board of Canada, and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. These data are gathered, compiled and presented very differently, and the way they are interpreted depends on the sources used and the treatment of anonymous postings. Third, with the exception of Statistics Canada, none of these sources collects job vacancies data in a manner that corresponds with internationally accepted definitions of employment and unemployment.[74]

Mr. Fréchette also told the Committee about a 2011 Statistics Canada survey, Workplace Survey: Jobs Vacancies and Skills Shortages, which has not yet been released due to a lack of resources to validate, analyze and disseminate the results. Although ESDC recently announced funding to complete the work required, Mr. Fréchette said that the results will not shed any light on the state of labour demand at the time the results are ultimately disseminated.[75]

Bard Golightly, President, Canadian Home Builders’ Association, recommended that residential trades and occupations be included in the labour market information used by the provinces and territories when designing LMDA-funded training programs.[76]

Michael Atkinson, President, Canadian Construction Association, said that the construction industry preferred to compile their own data, which look forward rather than back, and which he believes are generally more reliable than those provided by the government. Mr. Atkinson then told the Committee that BuildForce Canada is the organization that prepares annual labour market projections for Canada’s construction industry, which uses information on regional labour demand in 33 construction trades, and the data are then aggregated nationally.[77]

Michael Mendelson, Senior Scholar, Caledon Institute of Social Policy, stressed how important it is to have labour demand data in real time.[78] In his view, successfully developing a real-time labour demand information system would require firms to report their job openings in a coherent way and the data to be provided regularly to the appropriate federal organization.[79]

1. Statistic Canada’s mandate regarding labour market information

In order to address gaps on data related to labour demand and, to a lesser extent, labour supply, several witnesses recommended that the government expand Statistics Canada’s mandate (and increase its budget accordingly) to include compiling data on labour demand and supply in Canada, by region, industry and occupation.

[I]’ll just underline the importance of a comprehensive, coherent approach to labour market information that makes it useful, understandable, and interpretable for job seekers as well as analysts and researchers. We think Statistics Canada should be given this mandate.[80]

Karen Lior
Toronto Workforce Innovation Group

[W]e need solid data from an institution, from an organization like Statistics Canada to really make informed decisions, not the PBO but parliamentarians and policy-makers, to really make up their minds and make good decisions about future programs. As the old saying goes … if you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it.[81]

Jean-Denis Fréchette
Library of Parliament

[T]he focus should be on Statistics Canada and how they can collect that kind of information. Regarding the survey mentioned—the workplace survey that was conducted in 2011—you need that type of information on a continuous basis. Every year that survey has to be conducted, so that you provide a time series of information on different aspects of the labour market. That would give you the ability and capacity to see exactly what is going on where, in which occupation, in which part of the country. Then you can target your programs in that way. That would be more effective.[82]

Mostafa Askari
Library of Parliament

The Statistics Canada job vacancy survey is a good start, but it does not provide data by specific occupation, and it lacks regional and local detail. We recommend the federal government increase funding to Statistics Canada so it can develop more detailed labour market data.[83]

Barbara Byers
Canadian Labour Congress

RECOMMENDATION 7

The Committee recognizes that the government has recently announced two new surveys to monitor labour market information and recommends that the government continue to invest in ways to improve labour market information.

C. Managing and coordinating the pan-Canadian information system on provincial and territorial employment and training programs

Many witnesses told the Committee that ever since the federal government transferred responsibility for employment and training to the provinces and territories, data on provincial and territorial programs are not presented consistently from one province to the next, since nobody is responsible for managing and coordinating the pan-Canadian labour market information system. In their view, one of the leading consequences of this inconsistency is the inability to compare provincial and territorial outcomes so as to identify best practices.

I think the challenge, though, and the very first thing you need to do, is to have consistent data. Provinces and territories can go about and design programs based on a common set of interventions in a way that they believe best meets the needs of their jurisdiction, but if we don’t have consistent data in being able to look at what’s happening in the system, then it’s hard to tell whether what’s happening in Manitoba is more effective than what’s happening in Ontario or elsewhere.[84]

Tyler Meredith
Institute for Research on Public Policy

The provinces are generally fairly highly resistant to being compared with one another, which is why I think the labour market programming needs to be done in a collaborative fashion between the federal and provincial governments. They can agree to some overall goals, for which they would then be willing to provide information and data.[85]

Donna Wood
As an Individual

While the data needs to be captured at the local level, we believe it has to be coordinated amongst provinces for use at the national level. We also need to collect information on which interventions work and which ones are less effective. This way, comparisons can be made between jurisdictions, and programming and agreements can be adjusted.[86]

Joyce Reynolds
Restaurants Canada

Alain Noël, Professor, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, appearing as an individual, recommended that the federal government play a greater role in the dissemination of Canadian labour market information and the exchange of best practices among the provinces and territories.[87]

The Hon. Jason Kenney, ESDC Minister, said that the federal government is holding talks with the provinces and territories to come up with better performance indicators for evaluating the costs and benefits of provincial and territorial programs. He also stressed that in no way does the federal government want to place an additional administrative burden on the provinces and territories, but instead it is looking to work with them to find a way to collect comparable data in order to determine whether certain programs work better than others.[88]

1. Canadian Institute for Labour Market Information

Donna Wood, Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Victoria, appearing as an individual, recommended that the federal government create a new federal agency that would play a role similar to that of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), but for labour market information. This agency, which could be called the Canadian Institute for Labour Market Information, would be charged with identifying, maintaining and disseminating Canadian labour market information. It would also look after data gathering and analysis for comparative research to identify employment and training best practices among the provinces and territories. The Canadian Institute for Labour Market Information would operate under a collaborative structure similar to that of the CIHI.[89]

When asked about the value of establishing a Canadian institute for labour market Information when the federal government could simply ask Statistics Canada to collect and disseminate more labour market information, Ms. Wood replied that she did not believe Statistics Canada would be able to conduct comparative research on provincial and territorial employment and training programs by having more data models or new surveys.[90] Furthermore, Donna Wood stated that Statistics Canada would not, as a federal agency, be able to determine the provincial and territorial program objectives and results.

Frédéric Lalande, Director General, Coalition des organismes communautaires pour le développement de la main-d’œuvre, expressed a similar view, saying that the Coalition would be in favour of an initiative similar to the CIHI targeting employability and labour market training measures.[91]

RECOMMENDATION 8

The Committee recommends that the federal government in collaboration with provincial and territorial governments study the benefits and costs of establishing a Canadian institute for labour market Information.

Other witnesses suggested that managing and coordinating the Canadian information system could be the responsibility of the federal and provincial/territorial governments, in consultation with stakeholders external to the  public sector  (e.g., businesses, labour, community organizations) through the labour market forums mentioned in the preceding chapter.

Chris Atchison, Chair, Canadian Coalition of Community-Based Employability Training, said that currently there is no Canada-wide framework on labour market measures and their objectives. The LMDAs, negotiated bilaterally between the federal government and the provinces and territories, do not provide any formal ways for businesses, labour groups or other stakeholders to provide consistent data to the Canadian labour market information system.[92]

2. Labour market forums

Mary-Lou Donnelly, Commissioner for Workers, Canada Employment Insurance Commission, said that workers support the creation of labour market forums in all provinces and territories.[93] Creating these forums, as recommended in the previous chapter, could help identify skills gaps by region and industry or come up with ways to improve the quality and quantity of Canadian labour market information.

Mathew Wilson, Vice-President, National Policy, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, told the Committee that his organization is currently working with ESDC on setting up consortia of labour market information. These consortia, a concept similar to labour market forums, would bring employers together with universities and colleges to figure out new ways of collecting and analyzing Canadian labour market information.[94]