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The Unbalanced Canadian Skilled-Labour Market, Pt. 1

January 3, 2013 By Fraser Martens Leave a Comment


Thousands of clients worldwide are already using Analyst, EMSI’s premier web-based labour market data tool. Now, EMSI is pleased to introduce Analyst for Canada. Based on EMSI’s unique and comprehensive set of workforce and demographic data, Analyst for Canada provides community colleges, workforce boards, and anyone with an interest in understanding the dynamics of Canada’s regional economies with a fast, easy way of getting the data-driven answers they need to make informed, objective decisions.

In December, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Chief Economist Benjamin Tal released a significant new study of the Canadian labour market. Focusing on the increasing disconnect between the skills of workers available in the workforce and the hiring needs of Canada’s employers, the report found that Canada is facing two significant problems. On one hand, the CIBC reported that at least 30% of Canadian businesses indicated that they were dealing with a skilled labour shortage. Yet, on the other, workers in many skills fields are facing a rapid decrease in job openings. There simply aren’t enough jobs to match the supply of trained workers in a number of occupations, even as other industries are being hamstrung by a severe labour shortage.
The CIBC report draws conclusions about the national implications of this two-sided labour problem, identifying 25 jobs that were in higher demand than the labour market could supply, and 20 jobs whose hiring demands are oversupplied. We thought that this sounded like just the kind of thing that EMSI’s new Analyst for Canada would be perfect for looking at a little more thoroughly. In Part 1, we’ll look at the dynamics of the CIBC high-demand-jobs set as a whole, seeing which parts of it are growing or declining and where the jobs are for the whole set. In Part 2, we’ll look in more depth at some specific industries and occupation subsets within the larger group, and find out where the action is for those looking for jobs in those occupations.

The first thing we did was organize CIBC’s list of 25 occupations showing skills shortages into an occupation group in Analyst, so that we could look at how these jobs are doing as a whole. We immediately found that the CIBC had done some rearranging to make a neat and tidy list of 25 jobs; EMSI uses Statistics Canada’s NOC-S system for defining occupations, and the jobs on the CIBC list actually include 55 NOC-S occupations. That’s a large, unwieldy number, but we’re going to use it for a few things before we break it down into more detail.

As a group, despite the labour shortage, these 55 jobs have been doing just fine. In fact, from 2010 to 2012, the group as a whole has grown by 4.3%, adding 56,384 jobs. In 2012, this group accounted for 1,377,051 jobs nationwide, a respectable portion of Canada’s 15.4 million jobs. Within those 55 occupations, though, there are definite winners and losers. On the plus side, several occupations in the group experienced growth of well over 20%. Leaders included:

  • Mechanical engineers, growing 22% and adding 7,385 jobs
  • Architecture and science managers (23.3%, 1,678 new jobs)
  • Head nurses and supervisors, (26.6%, 5,164 new jobs)
  • and the big percentage winner, drillers and blasters (surface mining, quarrying, and construction), which increased 33.9% by adding 845 jobs to a small sector.

Overall, of the 55 jobs we’re considering, 42 showed either negligible or positive growth from 2010 to 2012, and 11 grew by 10% or more.

On the flip side of the coin, it was rough two years for the other 13 occupations. Some of the sharpest declines came in:

  • Other occupations in physical sciences (-14%, losing 348 jobs)
  • Computer and IT systems managers (-6%, losing 3,050 jobs)
  • Engineering managers (-17%, losing 3,714 jobs)

The last of those, engineering managers, points out an interesting trend in the job market. While engineering managers were down significantly, actual engineers in specific fields showed positive growth across the board. These losses, centred on CMAs like Ottawa and Longueil which have recently been seeing significant foreign investment in the tech sector, suggest a significant number of smaller firms being started, which don’t have large enough employee bodies to need distinct engineering managers, as well as many engineers contracting their services to foreign companies.

For another perspective, we used Analyst’s GIS tool to look at where this group of occupations was experiencing the most change, positive and negative. The results are striking. This map shows Canada as a whole, with growth numbers for the 55-occupation set as a whole represented at the Census Division level.

Where are the CIBC jobs doing the best? Edmonton, for one, is doing great, adding a total of 3,342 jobs for a 9% growth. Vancouver is booming as well, adding 2,374 jobs and growing 4%. Percentage-wise, the real winners include Wellington, which grew 28% to 5,841 jobs; Simcoe, up 24% to 8,000; and Waterloo, growing 19% to 14,721.

So far we’ve only looked at the complete set of 55 occupations that the CIBC report addressed. But within that large group, there are several groups of related occupations that jumped out at us. To get another perspective on the impact of the 55 occupations on Canada, we’ve broken the group down into these smaller sets and looked at how they’re doing.

One of the most significant groups in the overall list is the cluster of healthcare occupations. The ongoing need for more workers in every healthcare occupations returns to the headlines too frequently to ever be forgotten — but how large is that sector already? Of the 55 occupations scrambling for workers, 14 are related to healthcare. We ran a nationwide report on these 14 occupations to see which were growing the fastest, which you can see below:

NOC-SDescription2010 Jobs2012 JobsChange% Change
Source: Employees & Self-Employed - EMSI 2012.4 BETA
D112Registered nurses276,094283,9057,8113%
D111Head nurses and supervisors19,50224,9135,41128%
D011Specialist physicians36,61638,9462,3306%
D013Dentists18,78520,7281,94310%
D021Optometrists3,8795,0221,14329%
A014Senior managers - Health, education, social and community services and membership organizations7,7668,75098413%
E021Psychologists21,72422,3896653%
D012General practitioners and family physicians46,21446,6954811%
D032Dietitians and nutritionists8,7379,2054685%
D223Dental technologists, technicians and laboratory bench workers6,4936,8013085%
D023Other professional occupations in health diagnosing and treating4,9125,2002886%
D022Chiropractors6,3436,6282854%
D219Other medical technologists and technicians (except dental health)5,2144,678(536)(10%)
D031Pharmacists28,17826,704 (1,474)(5%)
Total490,455510,56320,1084%

Some highlights:

  • The real shortage in nursing isn’t just in registered nurses, but especially in the obvious need for experienced nurses to fill jobs as head nurses and supervisors, a sector which spiked by 27%, or over 5,000 jobs. It’s hard to say why registered nurses would want to make the transition, though; head nurses earn, on average, only a dollar more per hour than registered nurses.
  • While the job market for pharmacists seems to be shrinking (although it did grow marginally from 2011 to 2012), they make exceptionally high wages — an average of $41.40, more than any other occupation in this set.
  • While nursing occupations are growing rapidly, the number of general practitioners and family physicians stayed essentially flat, a surprising inconsistency with the rest of the group.

Another stand-out group in the CIBC 55 is the booming oil and gas mining industry. We ran the same report on these nine jobs:

NOC-SDescription2010 Jobs2012 JobsChange% Change
Source: Employees & Self-Employed - EMSI 2012.4 BETA
I131Underground production and development miners19,40122,3672,96615%
I215Oil and gas drilling, servicing and related labourers9,05410,6651,61118%
I122Supervisors, oil and gas drilling and service20,07521,3321,2576%
I132Oil and gas well drillers, servicers, testers and related workers23,65524,8621,2075%
H622Drillers and blasters - Surface mining, quarrying and construction2,5633,41985633%
J011Supervisors, mineral and metal processing9,53410,3307968%
I142Oil and gas well drilling workers and services operators11,51412,0455315%
J012Supervisors, petroleum, gas and chemical processing and utilities17,20517,4102051%
I121Supervisors, mining and quarrying7,1397,030(109)(2%)
Total120,141129,4609,3198%

Every single one of these occupations is growing, nationwide, with the lowest-level occupation in the set (drillers and blasters) growing the fastest at a huge 34% while still earning a respectable average wage of $23.98. Unlike healthcare occupations, though, mining industries are highly regionalized in Canada, so we turned to the GIS tool again to see where this growth is actually happening. Take a look at this map of which Census Divisions are adding jobs in this set of occupations, and which are losing them:

There are some very large Census Divisions showing eye-catching red losses here, but overall this is a very successful picture. No Census Division lost more than 488 jobs from 2010 to 2012, and less than one-third lost jobs to any extent. As expected, big gains were made in the Alberta Census Divisions — Calgary grew the most of anywhere, adding 1,037 jobs for a healthy 11% expansion, and Edmonton added 455 jobs for 9% growth, good for fourth in the country. But Sudbury came in an unexpected second, adding 812 jobs for an eye-popping 33% expansion, and Cochrane trailing in third with a 24% expansion of 533 new jobs.

Finding unexpected data like Sudbury and Cochrane’s growth suggests that we should take a closer look at where the occupations we’re considering are in the most demand, to find out where the need for new training in these fields is needed. We’ll look at some examples in Part 2.

For reference, here’s a table of all the jobs we’ve looked at, ranked by 2010-2012 growth:

NOC-SDescription2010 Jobs2012 JobsChange% Change
Source: Employees & Self-Employed - EMSI 2012.4 BETA
B022Professional occupations in business services to management119,261128,4779,2168%
C031Civil engineers44,59452,5327,93818%
D112Registered nurses276,094283,9057,8113%
C032Mechanical engineers38,18644,7596,57317%
B011Financial auditors and accountants205,611211,7636,1523%
D111Head nurses and supervisors19,50224,9135,41128%
I131Underground production and development miners19,40122,3672,96615%
E023Family, marriage and other related counsellors38,04640,8952,8497%
D011Specialist physicians36,61638,9462,3306%
C048Other professional engineers, n.e.c.17,27319,3942,12112%
J013Supervisors, food, beverage and tobacco processing17,53519,5942,05912%
C034Chemical engineers9,46011,4992,03922%
C033Electrical and electronics engineers38,36740,3181,9515%
D013Dentists18,78520,7281,94310%
B021Specialists in human resources73,60375,5211,9183%
I215Oil and gas drilling, servicing and related labourers9,05410,6651,61118%
A123Architecture and science managers7,8249,3181,49419%
A373Transportation managers23,62025,0791,4596%
E031Natural and applied science policy researchers, consultants and program officers26,17527,5641,3895%
I122Supervisors, oil and gas drilling and service20,07521,3321,2576%
I132Oil and gas well drillers, servicers, testers and related workers23,65524,8621,2075%
D021Optometrists3,8795,0221,14329%
A014Senior managers - Health, education, social and community services and membership organizations7,7668,75098413%
J022Supervisors, electronics manufacturing3,6704,64497427%
A371Construction managers57,30258,2679652%
H622Drillers and blasters - Surface mining, quarrying and construction2,5633,41985633%
J011Supervisors, mineral and metal processing9,53410,3307968%
E021Psychologists21,72422,3896653%
I142Oil and gas well drilling workers and services operators11,51412,0455315%
J026Supervisors, other mechanical and metal products manufacturing18,71719,2154983%
D012General practitioners and family physicians46,21446,6954811%
D032Dietitians and nutritionists8,7379,2054685%
D223Dental technologists, technicians and laboratory bench workers6,4936,8013085%
D023Other professional occupations in health diagnosing and treating4,9125,2002886%
D022Chiropractors6,3436,6282854%
E024Ministers of religion31,71831,9882701%
J027Supervisors, other products manufacturing and assembly6,3566,5892334%
J012Supervisors, petroleum, gas and chemical processing and utilities17,20517,4102051%
J014Supervisors, plastic and rubber products manufacturing7,6477,8401933%
D014Veterinarians11,52911,580510%
D044Other professional occupations in therapy and assessment5,8975,881(16)0%
I121Supervisors, mining and quarrying7,1397,030(109)(2%)
J023Supervisors, electrical products manufacturing2,4962,356(140)(6%)
J025Supervisors, fabric, fur and leather products manufacturing2,1501,946(204)(9%)
C015Other professional occupations in physical sciences2,6732,346(327)(12%)
J015Supervisors, forest products processing13,22512,855(370)(3%)
J016Supervisors, textile processing1,7631,383(380)(22%)
E216Other religious occupations7,5427,158(384)(5%)
D219Other medical technologists and technicians (except dental health)5,2144,678(536)(10%)
J024Supervisors, furniture and fixtures manufacturing7,1746,463(711)(10%)
B012Financial and investment analysts51,40150,270 (1,131)(2%)
E022Social workers61,48260,223 (1,259)(2%)
D031Pharmacists28,17826,704 (1,474)(5%)
A122Computer and information systems managers52,64349,662 (2,981)(6%)
A121Engineering managers23,22319,057 (4,166)(18%)
Total1,638,7571,706,46167,7044%

Data and analysis for this post came from Analyst, EMSI’s web-based labour market tool. Follow us on Twitter @desktopecon. Email Fraser Martens if you have any questions or comments, or would like to see further data.

Fraser Martens

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