Canada faces a troubling trend in the skills levels of its work force. Despite more Canadians obtaining a postsecondary education between 2003 and 2012, literacy and numeracy skills have slid. What gives?
According to OECD international surveys of adult skills in seven participating countries, including the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Italy and the United States, the problem with declining numeracy scores is widespread. But Canada and Norway were the only countries with a drop in literacy skills. For Canada, this is a paradox: We have the largest share of the working-age population with tertiary education among these Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.
Earning a…
There was zero progress at the North American free-trade agreement renegotiations in Mexico this week. In fact, the talks took a decidedly backward step, with the United States refusing to move off its red-line positions, something that was predictable given the updated negotiating objectives released by the U.S. Trade Representative ahead of this week's session.
This is an "America First" administration, after all, with no interest in accommodation, increasing the likelihood of eventual U.S. withdrawal from the agreement, an action that President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened, in spite of intensifying business and political pressures to the contrary.
Given that gloomy prospect, let's look at how things could…
Canada's labour force has become more diverse, but visible minorities as a whole still struggle to achieve parity in the labour market. Even accounting for differences in individuals' characteristics, the data show that the slow process of integration for immigrants merits special attention.
More than one-fifth of Canadians are visible minorities – non-Indigenous and "non-Caucasian" in race or non-white in colour – according to the 2016 Census. Visible minorities earned only 81.2 per cent of what non-visible minorities earned in 2015 – a gap that has widened by 2.6 percentage points since 2000.
Education, work experience and occupation play important roles in earning outcomes, but they are not able to fully…
