This Operational Plan for the 2024–2025 fiscal year outlines the objectives and activities that the Labour Market Information Council (LMIC) has established based on the LMI priorities as set out in its Strategic Plan for 2021–2025. They were identified during a series of stakeholder consultations to understand what undertakings are necessary to make progress toward these LMI priorities.
Over the coming fiscal year, LMIC will continue to maintain its LMI resources, including the Canadian Job Trends Dashboard and Future of Work annotated bibliography, and will begin work on a new educational resource known as LMIC Guides to define key labour market terms, data uses and concepts. LMIC will also continue to attend conferences, organize webinars and share expertise to support employees and employers. This document provides an overview of the planned activities and research initiatives.
Since LMIC's inception as an independent, non-profit organization in 2017—under the directive of the Forum of Labour Market Ministers—its aim has always been to work collaboratively with all levels of government and other stakeholders to empower Canadians to make informed career decisions by enabling their access to quality, relevant and comprehensive data and insights across the pan-Canadian LMI ecosystem.
Our 2021-2025 Strategic Goals
2022-2023 Strategic Objective
2022-2023 Strategic Objective
2022-2023 Strategic Objective
Guide LMI systems
Strategic Objective:
Foster an innovative LMI ecosystem
This fiscal year, LMIC will continue to foster an innovative LMI ecosystem by testing, assessing and describing LMI analysis techniques. This work will be accomplished through research initiatives focused on emerging LMI topics, with the aim of supporting the ecosystem’s ability to respond quickly and efficiently.
Initiatives to be completed in fiscal year 2024–2025:
Labour market resilience in the face of an aging population
This report will explain the risk threshold approach to labour market experts and policy-makers. This technique offers a way to identify the occupations, sectors and regions most at risk of experiencing labour or skills shortages as the aging population leads to more retirements.
Connecting skills
This report will introduce new methods of identifying labour market trends using the language in online job postings (OJP) to explore the demand for skills. Technical LMI experts will be able to use the outlined methods to advance their research. This report will use three case studies to generate insights about the connections between the skills listed in OJP to help labour market experts and LMI providers better understand employers’ needs.
A worker’s market? Reassessing job quality amid labour market tightness
LMIC will test the conventional wisdom that states that tight labour markets have a positive impact on job quality. This work will involve regression analyses to test the relationships between various job quality indicators and the post-pandemic (tight) labour market. The gathered insights will benefit both policy-makers and labour market experts, who can apply the evidence to better understand the studied relationships.
Labour market imbalances in the skilled trades
Since the 1990s, there have been labour market imbalances in the skilled trades. Most recently, this trend has been noted in the construction and infrastructure sectors. To address associated concerns, LMIC will compile LMI about the skilled trades to inform stakeholders in government, education and industry organizations about labour market trends. LMIC will further support LMI experts and policy-makers with an accompanying article on regional labour market imbalances, including techniques for measuring these imbalances.
Exploring regional labour market imbalances
LMIC will explore variations in labour market trends across regions to understand how labour market imbalances vary across the pan-Canadian labour market. The findings will help policy-makers and labour market experts to better understand labour market imbalances in Canada.
Initiatives to begin in fiscal year 2024–2025:
Real wage gains and losses across the income distribution
LMIC will use regression analyses to understand the relationships between socio-economic factors and real wage fluctuations, focusing on immigrant status and the distribution of wages. The findings will inform policy-makers’ characterization of immigrants' labour market experiences by shedding light on important variables, such as occupation, sex, age and educational attainment.
Strategic Objective:
Collaborate with stakeholders to address LMI priorities
This fiscal year, LMIC will continue to collaborate with stakeholders to address LMI priorities. The focus will be on emerging and persistent LMI trends and gaps identified through LMIC’s ongoing engagements with stakeholders in the pan-Canadian LMI ecosystem.
Activities
Identify stakeholders' LMI needs
LMIC will collaborate with LMI stakeholders across the pan-Canadian ecosystem to identify priorities and ground its research initiatives in the LMI needs of the ecosystem.
Engage in conferences, webinars and events
LMIC will participate in conferences and speaking engagements to promote the availability, use and understanding of LMI.
Initiatives to be completed in fiscal year 2024–2025
Skilled trades: Landscape assessment
LMIC will work with stakeholders in the LMI ecosystem to understand the connections between education, training and professional organizations in the skilled trades. This assessment will enhance the understanding of career pathways and foster innovative solutions to address stakeholder priorities, such as increasing youth recruitment, women's retention, and eliminating labour market imbalances in construction and infrastructure.
Initiatives to begin in fiscal year 2024–2025
Post-secondary education and workforce alignment landscape assessment
LMIC will initiate a research project aimed at aligning post-secondary education with labour market needs, starting with a landscape assessment to understand and prioritize these systems. The project will yield resources that promote the use of LMI to address identified needs and gaps, enhancing access to LMI and supporting innovation in the pan-Canadian ecosystem.
Follow-up to the skilled trades landscape assessment
LMIC will launch follow-up work to address the LMI priorities revealed during the skilled trades landscape assessment. This follow-up work will advocate for youth, women and under-represented groups in the skilled trades, with initiatives to support policy-makers and organizations in making informed decisions about effective workforce development in the skilled trades ecosystem.
Enhance LMI practices
Strategic Objective:
Encourage the adoption of best practices in the generation, analysis and dissemination of LMI
This fiscal year, LMIC will encourage the adoption of best practices in generating, analyzing and disseminating LMI, with a focus on under-represented and equity-deserving groups.
Initiatives to be completed in fiscal year 2024–2025
Artificial Intelligence and LMI: How AI and new technologies are impacting LMI in Canada
This project will focus on responsible innovation and the ethical use of AI in the LMI ecosystem. The report will highlight insights, recommendations, best practices and ethical considerations to support the effective integration of AI into the LMI systems used by LMI providers, Canadians, policy-makers and labour market experts.
Decoding job postings: Improving accessibility for neurodivergent job seekers
This report will examine how neurodivergent individuals interpret the language and content of job postings and how these interpretations affect their job application decisions. It will also provide recommendations for employers to create more inclusive job postings, thereby enhancing the employment prospects of neurodivergent candidates.
Refugee success in Canada’s labour market: LMI needs and gaps
This report will address the challenges that refugees encounter in obtaining reliable and timely LMI during their stay in Canada. It will offer recommendations to improve LMI practices and access, with a focus on the needs of refugees and settlement service providers.
Initiatives to begin in fiscal year 2024–2025
Investigating LMI access for Black youth
LMIC will identify LMI gaps and labour market challenges faced by Black youth through comprehensive research, including surveys, focus groups and interviews. By examining the LMI sources used by Black youth—such as schools, community organizations and online platforms—LMIC will be able to assess the quality and reliability of the LMI received by Black youth. This work will result in recommendations for LMI providers and labour market experts about how to more effectively empower Black youth to make informed decisions about their education and career pathways.
Strategic Objective:
Promote LMI consistency and coherency
This fiscal year, LMIC will promote LMI consistency and coherency by using LMI terminology, concepts, data and methods to improve the pan-Canadian ecosystem.
Activities
Update annotated bibliography
LMIC will provide monthly updates to the Future of Work annotated bibliography and continually enhance this resource with additional, emerging LMI research.
LMIC Guides
LMIC will begin work on a new series of guides to define key labour market terms, data uses and concepts.
Initiatives to be completed in fiscal year 2024–2025
Understanding the green economy: Exploring the concept of green jobs and their impact
This report will explore the concept of green jobs in the green economy, highlighting their role in promoting environmental sustainability, social equity and economic growth. It will underscore the importance of localized and detailed LMI to support Canada’s transition toward a sustainable future.
Initiatives to begin in fiscal year 2024–2025
LMI and labour mobility: The labour market decisions of workers and job seekers
This article will examine the labour mobility experiences of workers and job seekers to understand the factors that influence their decisions and the role of LMI. The goal is to identify LMI gaps related to labour mobility and to promote consistency within the LMI ecosystem. Understanding workers' and job seekers' decision-making processes will help policy-makers and LMI providers to better serve Canadians.
Champion LMI access
Strategic Objective:
Enable access to LMI across the pan-Canadian ecosystem
This fiscal year, LMIC will enable access to LMI across the pan-Canadian ecosystem by working with government stakeholders to identify challenges in accessing timely, relevant and granular LMI.
Initiatives to be completed in fiscal year 2024–2025
Navigating the unknown: LMI challenges in small, rural and northern jurisdictions
LMIC is working with government stakeholders in Canada’s northern and smaller labour markets to identify the challenges they face in accessing and using official labour market data. In addition, this project will document the approaches used by stakeholders in these labour markets to compensate for LMI gaps. This convening activity will benefit policy-makers and government agencies working in labour market data collection and delivery.
Understanding the gaps in Canada’s foreign credential recognition (FCR) process
By conducting a series of focus groups and participating in Statistics Canada surveys, LMIC will gather information about the experiences of recent immigrants in Canada, including the challenges they face when it comes to obtaining foreign credential recognition and using their credentials to find employment. The findings will highlight gaps and barriers in the current FCR system to help policy-makers and LMI providers develop solutions and build on existing opportunities.
Strategic Objective:
Promote and support the use of LMI
This fiscal year, LMIC will promote and support the use of LMI for intermediaries and other stakeholders by developing tools that enable these partners to support Canadians' labour market decisions. LMIC will also proceed with research initiatives aimed at identifying the LMI needs of under-represented groups and providing recommendations for LMI service providers.
Activities
Benchmark days: Shedding light on labour market realities and challenges
LMIC will continue to use its platform to highlight the labour market experiences and challenges of under-represented groups. This will include launching blog posts on significant dates.
Track trends in online job postings
LMIC will continue to maintain the Canadian Job Trends Dashboard to provide and promote real-time LMI centred on jobs and skills in the Canadian labour market.
Initiatives to begin in fiscal year 2024–2025
Understanding the links between immigration policies and the labour market
LMIC will explore the connections between immigration policies and Canada’s labour market, provide guidance on accessing and understanding related labour market data, and defining critical concepts and terms related to immigration in the LMI ecosystem. This project will promote and support the use of immigration-focused LMI focussed on immigration and the labour market for policy-makers, labour market experts and LMI providers in the LMI ecosystem.
Understanding concepts, challenges and policies related to labour mobility
LMIC will comprehensively review labour mobility concepts and policies, including those related to regulated occupations. The goal of this project is to promote and support the use of LMI by launching initiatives focused on labour mobility, informing policy-makers’ discourse around labour mobility, and helping LMI providers to understand and/or access information about labour mobility in regulated occupations.