Exploring Labour Market Trends

Why should you know about labour market trends?

• When choosing a career: it’s important to consider what the demand for your skills will be in future when you graduate.

• Many professions go through boom and bust cycles.

• For example, there is a high demand for nurses in British Columbia. Several years ago nurses were leaving the province because there were few opportunities here.

• It is important to keep in touch with labour market trends to help you manage your career.

Words from Warren, a university graduate

• Graduated from UVic with a liberal Arts degree which he discovered was not enough for today’s labour dynamics

• “I recognize now that technological expertise is essential to make use of my degree”

• “ I regret the lack of thought and research which were missing in my decision making”

Education is in demand:• Jobs requiring post-secondary will grow by 95%

(Economic Council of Canada)

• In the next decade, 64% of all jobs created will require more that 12 years education and training – almost half of these jobs require more that 17 years

• There is emphasis on life-long learning (continuous retraining) to stay current with change

• Future employees will be capable of functioning in various work areas because they will be required to have a broad knowledge base

• Employees with more than a basic knowledge and skills of technology are more likely to succeed in the workplace

More education & training = more opportunities & money

The Harsh Reality: • 85% of parents expect their child to attend

university or college

• 85% of grade 8s and 9s expect to continue to post secondary education, including 70% who plan to be university graduates

• Reality only 20% actually attend university and of the grade 8s and 9s only 14% receive a first degree

Only 9% of students plan to go directly to work, however, 64% actually do go straight from high school to the work force

300,000+ people are unemployed in B.C., of whom 2 out of 3 are under the age of 25

Career Development:

• It takes an average of 10 years for average young people to access the beginning of a career path (VSB STEPS, Winter 1995)

• It is expected that young people will change jobs 10 times during their working life

• People will no longer stay in a job for 25 years it takes to earn a gold watch but will move every six or seven years

• People who do not move as frequently are known as “career lazy”

• More individuals will work part-time or on a contract basis

• A realistic goal for the future for some people is in entrepreneurship

• Job search strategies must be proactive to be successful

• Maintaining connections will assist the job searcher and provide access to opening in the workplace

Sectors of the Economy

• A nation’s economy can be divided into various sectors to define the proportion of the population engaged in the activity sector.

• This categorization is seen as a continuum of distance from the natural environment.

Primary Sector

• The primary sector of the economy extracts or harvests products from the earth.

• Activities associated with the primary sector include agriculture, mining, forestry, farming, grazing, hunting and gathering, fishing, and quarrying.

Secondary Sector

• The secondary sector of the economy manufactures finished goods.

• Activities associated with the secondary sector include metal working and smelting, automobile production, textile production, chemical and engineering industries, aerospace manufacturing, energy utilities, engineering, breweries and bottlers, construction, and shipbuilding.

Tertiary Sector

• The tertiary sector of the economy is the service industry.

• Activities associated with this sector include retail and wholesale sales, transportation and distribution, entertainment, restaurants, clerical services, media, tourism, insurance, banking, healthcare, and law.

Quaternary Sector

• The quaternary sector of the economy consists of intellectual activities.

• Activities associated with this sector include government, culture, libraries, scientific research, education, and information technology.

Quinary Sector

• Includes the highest levels of decision making in a society or economy.

• This sector would include the top executives or officials in such fields as government, science, universities, nonprofit, healthcare, culture, and the media.

Types of Employment

Casual employment

• A casual employee means an individual hired to do work of a temporary nature, i.e. maintenance worker, warehouse / store stocking & inventory, etc…

• It can also be known as seasonal employment because it is seasonal in nature, which is not continuous throughout the year, but recurs in successive year, i.e fisher, cannery, farm labourer, etc…

• A term employee is hired on a contract for a specific period of time under that contact the employment is considered continuous, i.e. researcher, community organizer, political speech writer, etc…

Disadvantages of casual employment

• no access to paid sick leave

• no guarantee of hours to be worked

• no requirement to be given a roster or to receive notice of roster changes – therefore making it difficult to plan time for personal reasons

• no guarantee of regular income so it can be difficult to plan a budget and can limit access to loans from financial institutions limited unfair dismissal protection

• no paid annual leave: while a casual receives a payment in lieu of annual leave, this is often spent at the time it is paid, not saved for a period of leave no access to paid public holidays

• no access to personal or carers’ leave

• no notice of termination

• can have limited access to training, career development, access to workplace information and a feeling that their work inputs may be less valued than those of permanent staff

Full-time employment

• If you work full-time you generally work between 35 and 40 hours per week on a continuing basis.

• You receive full weekly wages and benefits according to your employment contract.

Part-time employment

• Part-time employment is employment on a continuing basis for hours less than the standard work day, week or month

Benefits of part-time employment

• a guarantee of regular and rostered weekly hours that should not be altered without notice

• access to paid leave (sick, annual etc) within predetermined minimum entitlements

• guarantee of a weekly earning that allows for budgeting and access to finance

• access to minimum notice requirement for termination, redundancy, change of rostered hours.

Self-employment

• Self-employment is where a person works for themselves rather than someone else or a company that they do not own.

• To be self-employed, an individual is normally highly skilled in a trade or has a niche product or service for their local community.

Benefits of being self-employed• you are your own boss

• you can work when you choose to

• you have control over how the job is done

• there are tax incentives for work expense that can be claimed back via the tax system

• any profit made goes to you and not someone else.

• no sick leave, annual leave and long service payments

• you must pay your own workers compensation and public liability insurance and pension

• you may have to work long hours

• you may have to look for new business or contracts to ensure you have work

• you will have to do all your own paperwork and chase up any due payments

• no job security beyond your contract time

Disadvantages of being self-employed