Canadians Most Educated in G7, but Job Requirements and Training Gaps Persist

Students play baseball in front of Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto, in a file photo. (Matthew Little/The Epoch Times)

Canada has the most educated workforce among the G7 countries, but concerns remain regarding the mismatch between training and job needs.

A Statistics Canada report, based on the 2021 census, found that 57.5 percent of Canadians aged 25 to 64 had a college or university credential. Japan was second among the G7 countries, at 55.6 percent, with the United States third at 50.3. Italy was last at 20.0.

Ian Lee, a professor of business at Carleton University, said most pundits missed the warning signs further down in the report, and that the survey left him curious to know more.

“I read one op-ed that was critical. And everyone was saying, rah, rah, rah, aren’t we wonderful, aren’t we great. A significant number of pundits and experts have missed the point that we have in Canada very serious gaps, [and] about a million unemployed vacancies that are not filled,” Lee told The Epoch Times.

“Are we educating where the gaps are? Are we producing the right mix of graduates?”

The number of working-age people with degrees in computer and information science has grown 46.3 percent since 2016, while there has been stagnation or a slip in the number of apprenticeship certificate holders in three major trades: construction (an increase of just 0.6 percent), auto mechanics and repair (a decrease of 7.8 percent), and precision production, such as welding (a decrease of 10 percent). Job vacancies in construction and fabricated metal product manufacturing reached record highs in 2022.

Adjusted for inflation, average tuition fees for Canadian students have been decreasing from 2018–2019 to the current school year. Lee believes the high subsidization of university education leaves students less concerned about whether their studies lead to gainful careers.

“I don’t think university should be free. There should be a price except for those who are at the bottom [of the ability to pay],” he said.

“We need to have a conversation about how we’re going to fund universities, and should it be tied into either the family income of the student going to university, or, as the Australians are now doing it, saying you'll pay back a certain percent of your income for a certain number of years after you’ve graduated.”

Canada led the G7 with 24.6 percent of those aged 25 to 64 having a college certificate or diploma or similar credential in 2021, compared to 10.8 percent in the United States. However, Lee would welcome an even greater emphasis on colleges.

“The colleges have done a very, very good job. Colleges focus much more how to do something and universities focus on the why. There’s nothing wrong with theory, but we’ve got shortages of a lot of the occupations that the colleges are producing. So, the emphasis is going to have to be more on colleges rather than universities.”

The percentages of Canadians aged 25 to 64 with bachelor’s degrees or higher rose steadily from 23.0 in 2006 to 32.9 in 2021, but still trailed the UK (41.3), the United States (39.5), and Japan (34.2). Ontario and B.C. were the only provinces with percentages above the national Canadian average (36.8 and 35.0 respectively), while Newfoundland was last (20.8).

‘Protectionism’

Ian Madsen, a senior policy analyst for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, says university degrees vary in their relevance to employment.

“Post-secondary education in itself does not indicate a person has learned anything that is commercially or technically desirable. The various social science and humanities programs are emblematic of this, but are not the whole problem. There are not enough skilled or technical trades or vocations apprenticeships and certifications being created to meet current and future demand,” Madsen said.

“Another issue is credentialism and protectionism in the professional associations and other trade or vocational associations that obstruct recognition of comparable educational or skills attainment in other lands.”

Statistics Canada warned that Canada “may be leaving talent on the table with the educational qualifications of some foreign-educated workers being underused.”

Over one-quarter of immigrants with foreign degrees worked in jobs that required a high school diploma at most, a rate double that of Canadian-born or Canadian-educated degree holders. Although 36.5 percent of foreign-trained registered nurses and 41.1 percent of foreign-trained doctors worked as such in Canada, this was still less than half the rates, 87.4 percent and 90.1 percent respectively, for those with Canadian degrees.

“Going forward, we'll have more people retiring than entering. If you ramp up immigration, great, but if immigrants can’t work in the fields that they’re trained in, that’s a problem,” Rafael Gomez, a University of Toronto professor in human resources, said in an interview.

He believes that the foreign credential gap can be remedied.

“We might want to have an accelerated fast track to get these people working in those fields, especially where there’s shortages. We can make the barriers to entry lower without compromising safety or these other things that we’re worried about,” Gomez said.

Both Gomez and Lee believe increasing high school skills and apprenticeship programs could help meet job shortages. Restraint in a fast-growing public sector could also help.

“Is it necessary to expand public sector employment, especially in fields that aren’t critical? That’s labour that could be used in other areas. Workers would redirect their energy and their studies and apply a different model of effort to jobs that are available,” Gomez said.