Vol 6, Issue 4, June 24, 2021
Hamilton's Labour Market Connection
Your weekly news & updates from WPH!
In this week's edition: OaSIS - Occupational and Skills Information System developing; Is fulltime work from home career limiting?; Survey on employment and skills; Hamilton Labour Force Information April 2021
Development of Canada's Occupational and Skills Information System
Employment and Social Development Canada, with support from Statistics Canada and the Labour Market Information Council is currently developing a database that maps skills to occupations. The Occupational Skills and Information System (OaSIS) will provide a framework of occupations and skills in the Canadian context. OaSIS will be constructed in two phases. The first phase will develop and validate profiles for almost 900 occupations. The second phase will see dissemination of information through a bilingual, searchable user interface.

OaSIS aims to describe jobs in terms of their skills requirements and other characteristics. There are many international occupational information and skills systems that already exist such as the Occupational Information Network in the US and the UK Skills Taxonomy.

OaSIS will contribute to meeting the needs of Canadians by presenting labour market and occupational information that can help different users make sound decisions about career choices and curriculum planning. It will also lead to more informed advice on integration/reintegration in the labour market, shifting to new occupations, the right training for an individual’s skills gap, and whether a specific educational/training program will lead to gainful employment, amongst other outcomes.
Is Fulltime Working From Home A Career-Limiting Move?
Hybrid working between office and working from home seems to be the route that most businesses are taking as the restrictions are lessened and businesses begin to reopen again.

A career "penalty" would clearly be unwelcome for those who aim to continue to avoid a full-time return to the office. According to Statistics Canada, a full 80 per cent of participants in a survey done in April said they would like to spend at least half of their working hours at home after the pandemic ends.  
Research Spotlight: Survey on Employment and Skills
The Survey on Employment and Skills reports, conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research in collaboration with Future Skills Centre and the Diversity Institute, was designed to explore Canadians’ experiences with the changing nature of work, including technology-driven disruptions, increasing insecurity and shifting skills requirements.

Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the survey was expanded to investigate the impact of the crisis on Canadians’ employment, earnings and work environments. The project now includes four waves of data collection, from Spring 2020 to Autumn 2021.

The initial wave of the survey was conducted between late February and early April 2020. The second wave of the survey was conducted between November and December 2020, with a sample of over 5,300 Canadians aged 18 and over. It examined which types of workers have been most adversely affected by the pandemic, with a particular focus on working parents, those living in urban areas with high rates of COVID-19 transmission, younger workers, workers with immigrant backgrounds, and racialized workers. 
Hamilton Labour Force Information: April 2021

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