Canadians like to pride ourselves on our highly educated population. However, the country struggles to train its people in marketable and other practical skills. How is such a contrast possible?
Let’s start with some education data to illustrate the contrast. The data shown below is from the OECD, for Canada and eight of our peer countries. The peer countries are all developed Western countries of varying size and cultural composition.
Starting with the foundations, below are graphs displaying the national averages for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey for three domains. The survey tests 15-year old students’ abilities to apply knowledge of the domain for non-academic and academic purposes. The three domains are reading, mathematics, and science.
Here is the data for mathematics proficiency[1]:
Here is the data for reading proficiency[2]:
Here is the data for science proficiency[3]:
Compared to our peers, Canadian high school education looks quite good. For the OECD overall, Canada ranks:
- 7th in mathematics[1].
- 4th in reading[2].
- 3rd in science[3].
In a league that contains such heavyweights as Japan and South Korea, these are excellent rankings.
The country does very well, at least in terms of quantity, in higher education as well. Below is the OECD’s data for percentage of young workers (25 to 34 years old) with at least one tertiary qualification (college diplomas, bachelor’s degrees, trades certifications, et al) for the same basket of countries[4]:
There is clearly no lack of will-to-knowledge among Canadians, nor a lack of institutional capacity among educational establishments. Yet, the labour market apparently displays lack of skills.
We are all familiar with this cliche of a complaint from Canadian capitalists: “Muh labour shortage! Muh skills shortage!”
Joking aside, here is some data from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business illustrating the extent of the problem[5]:
- 63% of businesses affected by labour shortages said they can’t find applicants with the right skillset or experience,
- 52% of businesses suffering from labour shortages report receiving no applicants at all.
- Interestingly, 82% of businesses suffering from labour shortages have already raised wages, but only 22% report that strategy as successful.
This basic complaint is a long-term trend; the pandemic merely aggravated it for certain sectors.
So, how can it be, that Canada’s comparably high education stats are not translating into labour force availability? We will be looking deeper into this question over the next few blog posts.
References
[1] Mathematics performance (PISA) (indicator), OECD (2021). DOI: 10.1787/04711c74-en [Accessed: Dec. 29, 2021]
[2] Reading performance (PISA) (indicator), OECD (2021). DOI: 10.1787/79913c69-en [Accessed: Dec. 29, 2021]
[3] Science performance (PISA) (indicator), OECD (2021). DOI: 10.1787/91952204-en [Accessed: Dec. 29, 2021]
[4] Population with tertiary education (indicator), OECD (2021). DOI: 10.1787/0b8f90e9-en [Accessed: Dec. 29, 2021]
[5] “Labour shortages are back with a vengeance, putting small business recovery at risk,” Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, Dec. 9, 2021[online]. Available: https://www.cfib-fcei.ca/en/media/news-releases/labour-shortages-are-back-vengeance-putting-small-business-recovery-risk [Accessed Dec. 29, 2021].
Epitaph for a Nation 