The Unbalanced Canadian Skilled-Labour Market, Pt. 1

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-S	Description	2010 Jobs	2012 Jobs	Change	% Change
Source: Employees & Self-Employed - EMSI 2012.4 BETA
D112	Registered nurses	276,094	283,905	7,811	3%
D111	Head nurses and supervisors	19,502	24,913	5,411	28%
D011	Specialist physicians	36,616	38,946	2,330	6%
D013	Dentists	18,785	20,728	1,943	10%
D021	Optometrists	3,879	5,022	1,143	29%
A014	Senior managers - Health, education, social and community services and membership organizations	7,766	8,750	984	13%
E021	Psychologists	21,724	22,389	665	3%
D012	General practitioners and family physicians	46,214	46,695	481	1%
D032	Dietitians and nutritionists	8,737	9,205	468	5%
D223	Dental technologists, technicians and laboratory bench workers	6,493	6,801	308	5%
D023	Other professional occupations in health diagnosing and treating	4,912	5,200	288	6%
D022	Chiropractors	6,343	6,628	285	4%
D219	Other medical technologists and technicians (except dental health)	5,214	4,678	(536)	(10%)
D031	Pharmacists	28,178	26,704	(1,474)	(5%)
	Total	490,455	510,563	20,108	4%

Some highlights: