Why job growth may favour college grads, apprentices over university
students
Dana FlavelleBusiness Reporter
Fri Jan 13 2012
Toronto
Star
The Ontario economy was
expected to create more jobs for college graduates and apprentices than for
university students during and after the 2008 recession, according to a study.
College graduates and apprentices were expected to snare 35 per
cent of all new jobs, compared with just 26 per cent for university students,
the report done for the Ontario ministry of training, colleges and universities
predicted. High school graduates would qualify for 22 per cent of all jobs
while high school dropouts would get just 8 per cent, according to the report
called “Where are job trends headed in the future?”
About 9 per cent of new jobs would be management positions,
which are typically not filled by recent graduates, the report said.
The study looked at a five-year period that will end in 2013. At
first blush, the forecast appears to defy conventional wisdom that students
with the highest level of post-secondary education are most likely to land
work.
But the results didn’t surprise Linda Franklin, president and
chief executive officer of Colleges Ontario, the advocacy organization for the
province’s 25 community colleges.
In the short term, the trend can be partly explained by the fact
the public sector normally takes longer than the private sector to begin hiring
after a recession, she said.
University graduates tend to gravitate toward public sector
jobs, such as teaching and administration, she said, while college graduates
are more likely to end up in the private sector.
A survey by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business,
which represents mainly small, private sector employers, found its members
planned to hire six community college graduates for every university student,
Franklin noted.
Franklin also credits the colleges’ success on their close
co-operation with employers.
“In the longer term, what we’re finding is college graduates,
because our programs are quite specific and directed to needs of industry,
because we have industry advisory councils that help us look at curriculum, and
because businesses are less able to train people and they want them job- ready
immediately, they’re really looking to the colleges to help provide
candidates.”
In the low-skill jobs category, the report appears to confirm
the widely held view that as jobs become more technologically demanding they
require more education.
Nearly 1 million people in Ontario don’t have a high school
diploma, yet only 8 per cent of job growth will be in categories available to
them.
Even jobs like hotel cleaner and food server now require some
technological skill, said John McLaughlin, program manager for the Ontario
Literacy Coalition.
“Coffee shop baristas no longer just serve coffee, but
troubleshoot the Wi-Fi; and hotel room attendants are now often required to
operate personal digital (assistants) while cleaning rooms,” the coalition
noted in a recent report called Menial No More: A Discussion Paper on Advancing
our Workforce through Digital Skills.
“Technology is impacting all sorts of jobs,” McLaughlin said in
an interview.
“If someone has weak education skills in the first place, it’s
taking another leap to be able to engage them in technology. The lower on the
education spectrum you go, the less technology skills you have.”
The coalition says the provincial and federal governments need
to do more to address the needs of the least educated members of the workforce. from Toronto Star.
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