With predictably little fanfare, the Government of Canada recently released its Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS) results for the years 2013-2022.  You may remember the last time they released their 10-year projections back here, which basically showed that, to the extent there were persistent labour shortages in the economy, they were by and large not in the skilled-trades areas the government claimed were in such desperate straits.

The 2013-2022 report has unfortunately been written in such a manner as to preclude easy comparisons with the 2011-2020 version.  Without getting too technical, the earlier one is based on 3-digit National Occupation Classification (NOC) codes, while this new report uses 4-digit codes.  That sounds like it would be more accurate and helpful, but since data on actual job numbers is suppressed at the 4-digit level, there is no accurate way to use the new data to discover how many actual positions a surplus or shortage might involve.  The best you can do – and what I do below – is to look at the summaries for 3-digit codes, and assume that all of the change at the 3-digit level is actually happening in the one 4-digit code you happen to be interested in.  Yes, that sucks, but this is what ESDC’s choice of methodology leaves us with.

COPS, it should be noted, is not a detailed set of sector-by-sector analyses; rather, it’s an algorithm that models job flows in an economy over time.  It occasionally produces some odd results, such as that the demand for legislators is going to increase, or that there is going to be a huge demand for university professors over the next decade (yes, really).  Basically, COPS isn’t very good at understanding how politics and public sector finances affect hiring in monopsonistic fields like education and health care.

Ok, caveats aside, what does the new COPS data say?  Some highlights:

• Basically, we’re in balance –  172 of the 283 occupations examined are projected to have neither shortages nor surpluses in the next ten years.

• Occupations that are in chronic shortage – that is, have been in shortage for some time, and are projected to remain in shortage – include: Registered Nurses (shortage of 46,000 over 10 years), Physicians and Dentists (36,000), Industrial Electricians (16,000), Management Consultants (10,000), Contractors and Supervisors for Heavy Construction Crews (9,000*), University Professors (5,000). Aerospace Engineers (3,000), Opticians (maybe 2,000).

• Occupations moving into shortage – Administrative Officers & Property Officers (53,000), College/vocational Instructors (13,000), Health Care Managers (10,000), Elementary and Secondary Teacher Assistants (10,000), Contractors and Supervisors, Electrical Trades (9,000*) Insurance, Real Estate, and Financial Brokerage (7,000), Construction Estimators (3,000), Dental Technologists (2,000), Payroll Clerks, Chefs, Psychologists, Funeral Embalmers, Aircraft Assemblers (size of gap unknowable from available figures but presumed very small).

*Contractors & Supervisors, Trades, and Related Workers covers nine different occupations.  Seven of them are declared in balance, but the occupation as a whole is projected to have a shortage of 18,000.  This number was therefore spread equally over the two occupations, which were projected to be in shortfall – 9,000 each.

The chronic shortage positions are almost entirely taken up by positions that require university degrees – accounting for 80% of the 125,000 or so shortage positions in this category. Of the remaining 25,000, nearly all are in construction – and most of these are likely phantom jobs because the COPS projection assumes that oil prices will move steadily upwards to $150/barrel from 2013 onward.  In a world of $80/barrel, most of those shortages never happen.  Among the “moving into shortage” positions, nearly half of those jobs are accounted for by a single set of occupations (administrative officers); of the rest, roughly half require college-level credentials, and the other half university-level credentials.

In short, there’s not much to get excited about here.  If you take COPS literally, you’d probably hope governments are going to put a lot more money in health education over the next ten years.  If you look at it with a more jaundiced eye, you’d say “governments are never going to hire that many health professionals (or profs), and oil’s never going to $150”, and conclude there are virtually no skills shortages or the horizon at all.