Engineering and Technology Labour Market Study

This study is examining the current and future employment picture within the engineering and technology sectors of the Canadian economy. Five issues are the focal point of the study:

• Employer labour requirements
• The available workforce
• Attitudes and practices related to certification and licensing
• The role of diversity groups
• Globalization

You can check out the affiliated website or an interim report.

Here are some points of interest from the interim report.

• Individuals who obtained their engineering degrees outside Canada accounted for approximately20% of all employment in engineering occupations
• In 2006, members of visible minorities accounted for 25.8% of engineering employment and 14.9% of technology employment
• In BC The engineering age profile is older than average and this adds to supply pressures

Those of you who attended our workshop on “soft-skills” will be aware of the following points:

• Asked to rank a range of non-technical skills, by far the majority of employers ranked most of these skills between ‘essential’ and ‘very important’.
•  More than 50% of employers identified serious weakness in the
  non-technical skills of internationally educated professionals as the greatest obstacle to hiring them into engineering jobs

 

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