Future of work

The rise of environmental regulations, increased competition, and elevated market demand for eco-friendly solutions have led employers to seek emerging skills and workers to fill new occupation vacancies.  

Using a framework developed by the European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations system and a taxonomy of green skills developed by the European Classification of Occupations, the authors explored the outlook for the emergence of green jobs.  

In their report, they found that only 2.8% of Canadian jobs in 2023 were “green jobs.” This was the lowest rate of such jobs among the five assessed countries.  

Driven by vast renewable energy resources and set goals for a lower carbon economy, Canada’s efforts to develop green jobs were primarily centred in the energy and utilities sector.  

Across all evaluated countries, the researchers found that the most prevalent green skills in green job ads were related to  

• renewable energy engineering  

• sustainability management  

• energy management and environmental compliance  

The authors noted that the pace of growth for both green jobs and jobs requiring green skills is twice as large as the growth rate for the number of workers with those skillsets. This could lead to labour market imbalances if left unaddressed.  

The authors suggest that strengthening strategic workforce planning and refining employer positioning and recruitment practices could mitigate potential worker shortages.