Noah D. Arney

Category: Career Development

  • Youth Unemployment Issues

    A reminder that I love StatsCan data (yes, I’m a nerd). Well I was looking at unemployment and labour market participation over the last decades (1990-2022) averaged yearly and broken out by 15-64 and 15-24 groups in both Canada as a whole and just BC. I was hoping to see if BC was an outlier anywhere and we really aren’t. But I found something else very interesting.

    Three types of data tell us what’s going on: 1) unemployment rate (how many people in the workforce aren’t employed) 2) participation rate (how many people are in the workforce who could be) and 3) the difference between youth and all unemployment and participation.

    This gives us info like knowing that generally high unemployment aligns well with low labour market participation because people will self-select out of the labour market when it’s bad. We also see the shift over the 90s as more people under 24 are in post-secondary showing a substantial decline in their labour market participation but not a massive raise in unemployment (because they’re not unemployed, they’re in university. This info also tells us that the unemployment rate changing for youth but not for the whole labour market is an impact that only hits youth.

    So what happened during those 32 years? Well 1997-2004 was a bad time to be a youth looking for work. Youth labour market participation was going back up after the dip in the early 90s but the jobs weren’t there. Overall unemployment was fine, but if you were under 24 you were having a hard time. Then the strangeness that led me to writing this, 2005.

    Suddenly youth unemployment across the country drops. It’s a small blip in Canada, but in BC it’s massive. Youth unemployment in BC goes from a high of 15% in 2002 to a slow drop to 13.5% in 2004, that’s normal. But in 2005 it’s 10% and by 2007 it’s at its lowest in the entire data set at 7.7%. It’s so sudden and impactful, and localized to only BC it must have some cause, but I don’t know what it is, and I was in that age range at the time. I remember a lot of help wanted signs, and I remember that for the first time in my adult life I could easily get a summer job or part time job.

    This should have been fantastic, but the 2008 financial crash and oil price crash ended it. Unemployment for youth shoots right back up to 13% by 2009. The 2009 issue is clear, but what caused the drop in the first place? It was noticeable that youth in BC rejoined the labour market because of it. And it is very clearly a youth phenomenon because the dip for the all ages unemployment is minor.

    Moving forward from that time though after the recovery from the financial crash the youth unemployment rate starts going down again, slowly this time, hitting 7.7 again in 2018, and then looking to stabilize in 2019 at 9%. I say stabilize because after the shock to the system from COVID it’s back to the 8-9% that seems to be a “normal” youth unemployment rate.

    So what did I learn from the data? Youth participation lags youth unemployment slightly, but more perceptibly than all ages. Perhaps that means that youth are more likely to leave the workforce for school and other reasons if they can’t find work? Also, something happened at the end of 2004 or early 2005 to change youth employment in BC and it was impactful until the 2008 crash.

    Finally I learned that the changes in the economy impact youth first and most. In every increase to total unemployment youth are impacted months before the general unemployment rate. The gap grows every time there’s a crisis and it always takes several months after the general unemployment goes down for the gap to begin shrinking.

  • Humanities Vs Business has more to do with marketing than reality

    As has been the case since before I got my BA in English and Theatre, people remain concerned about the crisis in the humanities and the shift to business instead.

    John Warner has a great post about this over at his blog.

    I wanted to look at something I find interesting with the data though, from a career development standpoint.

    My English degree has been incredibly helpful in all of my roles, and something I’ve, especially when I lived in Calgary, is the number of management people I met who have humanities degrees. It’s really common. So common that it sometimes makes me question why so many universities have a BBAs in Management. Accounting, economics, finance, and supply chain all make sense to me, but Management before the graduate level has always been strange to me.

    Business degrees are often chosen because there is a straight line from degree title to job title and that makes things less worrisome. It’s what I call the “well worn path” method of choosing a post-secondary education program.

    Some quick definitions about what is normally called an Arts or Humanities program in Canada using ISCED info to help align things (PDF here).

    Generally under Arts:

    • 2 Humanities and arts
      • 21 Arts
        • Fine arts: drawing, painting, sculpture;
        • Performing arts: music, drama, dance, circus;
        • Graphic and audio-visual arts: photography, cinematography, music production, radio and television production, printing and publishing;
        • Design; craft skills.
      • 22 Humanities
        • Religion and theology;
        • Foreign languages and cultures: living or ‘dead’ languages and their literature, area studies;
        • Native languages: current or vernacular language and its literature;
        • Other humanities: interpretation and translation, linguistics, comparative literature, history, archaeology, philosophy, ethics.
    • 3 Social sciences, business and law
      • 31 Social and behavioural science
        • Sociology, demography, anthropology (except physical anthropology), ethnology, futurology,
        • Psychology
        • Geography (except physical geography), peace and conflict studies, human rights.
      • 32 Journalism and information
        • Journalism;
        • Library technician and science;
        • Technicians in museums and similar repositories;
        • Documentation techniques;
        • Archival sciences.

    Generally under Business:

    • 3 Social sciences, business and law
      • 31 Social and behavioural science
        • Economics, economic history, political science;
      • 34 Business and administration
        • Retailing, marketing, sales, public relations, real estate;
        • Finance, banking, insurance, investment analysis;
        • Accounting, auditing, bookkeeping;
        • Management, public administration, institutional administration, personnel administration;
        • Secretarial and office work.

    So Arts covers everything from fine arts to sociology while business is more focused. And oddly enough, social sciences, the section that in Canada is considered Arts but internationally is together with business seems to be the one group in Arts that’s bucking the downward trend. There’s a lot of cross over in the social sciences between arts and business, especially as economics tends to show up in both areas. Similarly the blurred line between communications and public relations has caused many a faculty argument in the past. Side note, the ISCED considers Supply Chain Management or Logistics to be part of Management and instead of Human Resources uses the term Personnel Administration. They also put political science and economics together. Instead of separating that I’m just putting both in the Business category.

    To simplify things I’m going to break it down into some common majors in the two fields, and this is a massive oversimplification.

    • Arts
      • Fine & Performing Arts
      • Graphic Arts and Design
      • History and Archaeology
      • Human Geography and related studies
      • Journalism, Publishing, and Media Production
      • Languages, Literature, and Linguistics
      • Library, Museum, and Archival studies
      • Philosophy & Ethics
      • Psychology
      • Sociology, Anthropology, and related studies
      • Theology
    • Business
      • Accounting
      • Business Administration
      • Economics
      • Finance
      • Human Rescources Management
      • Management
      • Marketing
      • Political Science
      • Public Administration
      • Public Relations
      • Retailing and Sales
      • Supply Chain Management

    But with those definitions out of the way lets move on to the NOC and compare the jobs there under business with the various majors. I’m only looking at TEER 1 jobs (generally requires a 4 year degree) as the TEER 0 (management) and TEER 2/3 (1-3 year degree) aren’t usually the ones BA/BBA students are looking at right after graduation.

    With that though suddenly the number of careers in the NOC drops rapidly. For the Arts/Business crowd you’re left with Professional Occupations in Business and Finance (11) and Professional occupations in art and culture (51). It excludes the entirety of Sales and Service occupations (6). In general the included roles under Art and Culture require an arts degree, but there are substantially fewer of them than the roles under Business and Finance. So let’s drill down into the jobs in Business and Finance.

    • Financial auditors and accountants
      • Licensing or certification post business degree in Accounting or Finance
    • Financial and investment analysts
      • Business degree in any major, Economics or Finance preferred
    • Financial advisors
      • Business degree in any major
    • Securities agents, investment dealers and brokers
      • Business degree or any other degree and experience
    • Other financial officers
      • Business degree with additional designations after
    • Human resources professionals
      • Business or social sciences degree
    • Professional occupations in business management consulting
      • Arts, Business, or Social Sciences degree
    • Professional occupations in advertising, marketing and public relations
      • Arts, Business, or Social Sciences degree

    So the TL:DR there is that it is a “well worn path” to have your major be the same thing you’re looking to do in a job, but outside of regulated professions like Accounting and Finance it’s not actually needed.

    Why is this important? I want students who want to work in marketing and communications to stop worrying about whether they should be in a marketing program or a communications program or a journalism program. Similarly I want students interested in HR and Organizational Management to stop worrying about if they should be in an HR program or a Psychology program or a Sociology program. They all work. What matters is who you are, what skills you develop, and how you want to use them.

    It is always easier for students to pick the “well worn path” program. That’s a communications problem that post-secondary hasn’t solved yet, but maybe someday we will.

    Final Note: I didn’t go into the management ones today because, well that has a lot more to do with the organization itself than with the degree. I’ve met a lot of IT managers with a Bachelors degree in English and a two year programing diploma. Because their job is a lot more about writing to non-technical people than it is programming.

  • AI Hasn’t Cracked Persuasion Yet

    I spent some time today playing with ChatGPT between meetings. I figured that I should see what it could come up with when asked about job application documents. It’s idea of what a resume looks like is rooted in the resumes of yesteryear, but it’s not so bad that I’d throw it out, just guide the writer in how to explain their impact in the prior roles.

    However, what I really wanted to see was what it could do for a cover letter. I started out simple by seeing if it knew the formatting, and the result was… well I guess that counts?

    Read more: AI Hasn’t Cracked Persuasion Yet

    Dear [Hiring Manager],

    I am writing to apply for the [position] at [Company]. With my extensive experience in [field], I am confident that I can quickly become an integral part of your team.

    In my current role as [position title], I have been responsible for [responsibility 1], [responsibility 2], and [responsibility 3]. These experiences have given me an understanding of [industry] and a valuable set of skills. I also have experience with [software/platform], which could be beneficial to your team.

    I am very excited about the opportunity to join [Company] and believe I have the dedication, knowledge, and enthusiasm to excel in this position. I am a quick learner and would appreciate the chance to bring my skills to the team.

    Thank you for taking the time to consider my application. I look forward to hearing from you and discussing my qualifications in more detail.

    Sincerely,

    [Your Name]

    It kinda looks like a narrative version of a resume though and that’s not the point of the cover letter. The broad strokes of the formatting are correct but it’s as if the system doesn’t know the point of the format. As you’ll see, that was the theme of my tests.

    Next up I gave it a job posting (I’m redacting certain info because it was an internal posting)

    Dear Hiring Manager,

    I am writing to apply for the Financial Analyst Co-op position at XYZ. With my educational background in finance, my enthusiasm for working in the capital markets and my strong analytical skills, I am confident that I am a perfect fit for this role.

    I have obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in finance, and I am currently pursuing a Master of Science degree in finance. My studies have provided me with the knowledge and experience to understand the complexities of the capital markets. I have also developed strong analytical skills, including the ability to analyze datasets, develop insightful commentary, and create analytical tools and initiatives.

    I have excellent verbal and written communication skills, and I can work independently and under pressure in a high-pressure, high-reward environment. I am also motivated to gain my CPA or CFA and am eager to take on increasingly greater accountabilities.

    XYZ is an organization that I truly admire and I am excited at the prospect of joining your team. I am confident that my enthusiasm and experience will be an asset to your organization. I look forward to discussing further how I can contribute to your team.

    Sincerely,

    [Your Name]

    It was able to pull some things in from the job posting, but it didn’t understand the required education and also wasn’t quite sure how things connected together. Instead what I got was a listing of skills in the job posting but with the words “I have excellent” ahead of it. It’s exactly what I expect to see of a generic cover letter from someone who doesn’t actually know what they have that’s valuable to the employer. There’s no real content in the cover letter it’s just reposting what the employer asked for. Also, Masters of Science in Finance? Really? That wasn’t asked for in any way, and the job is for someone with two years of education.

    After some tweaking I got a bit better of a cover letter

    Dear Hiring Manager,

    I am writing to express my strong interest in the Financial Analyst (Co-op), Capital Markets Performance Management position at XYZ. With my background in accounting/finance and reporting, my exposure to Capital Markets products and businesses, and my experience with analytical tools and managing large datasets, I believe I would be a great fit for this role.

    My background includes a B.Sc. in Accounting and Finance, in addition to experience in PowerPoint presentation, verbal and written communication, and strong analytical skills. I am a motivated individual who is comfortable working under pressure and can prioritize activities to ensure accuracy and timeliness of reporting.

    I am excited to join a team that is dedicated to providing trusted advice, helping clients thrive, and achieving success that is mutual. With the opportunity to do challenging work, take on greater accountabilities, and build close relationships with counterparts across the company, this position is a perfect fit for me.

    I am eager to learn more about this position and discuss how I can contribute to your team. I am available to discuss this opportunity further and can be reached at (000) 000-0000 or at [email protected]

    Thank you for your time and consideration.

    Sincerely,

    Your Name

    At least now it looks like a cover letter that I wouldn’t immediately throw out. But it still doesn’t understand that the point is to persuade the reader that they’re a good choice, not just restate what’s in the job posting with some platitudes.

    I’d share what happened with another job posting, but it was more of the same. Lots of platitudes and restating the job posting.

    I figured that it didn’t understand how to connect to the things in the posting because it didn’t have a resume, so I fed an example resume (we make fake resumes based off fictitious students to use as examples) and job posting in. The resume was one that would be just slightly indirectly connected to the job posting so that it was a bit harder. But it would still be something that I could easily walk a student through on how to make those connections. The AI on the other hand… well…

    Dear [Hiring Manager],

    As a 4th year Bachelor of Arts majoring in English and minoring in Psychology with an intention to pursue a career in the not-for-profit sector, I believe I am the perfect candidate for the position. My comprehensive knowledge of customer relations, developed through 5 years of high-caliber service in the food and beverage industry, combined with my strong team player and proficient interpersonal communication skills fostered by 3 years of experience as a community volunteer in event planning make me an ideal candidate.

    I am also highly organized and have excellent time management skills; maintaining a full course load with a cumulative 3.95 GPA while working a part-time job and volunteering. I am proficient in all MS Office Programs (Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, Excel). My experience volunteering at Anytown Shelter Thrift Store, assisting clients with community resources, as well as helping with social media posts and event management will be beneficial to the role.

    I have also presented a poster on sleep deprivation during student exams at the Psycology Conference in Anytown and have been awarded the Coop Student of the Year Award for my excellence and hard work as an Anytown University Coop Student. I am confident that my skills and experience make me an ideal candidate for this position.

    Thank you for your time and consideration and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

    Sincerely,

    Ella Pink

    My first thought was “YES, they got the idea” but then I kept reading. There were four connection points between the resume and cover letter, and the AI was able to figure out one of them. Even worse, it literally just dropped in wording directly from the resume without elaborating on it. And finally, there was something mentioned multiple times in different sections of the job posting (something a human would read as a flag that you need to mention it) but the AI didn’t bother.

    I ran that same resume through with a job posting for a psyc student co-op job with a child care company and a huge red flag went up for me. As soon as it had both a feminine name and childcare connected job the AI decided to stop overselling and be a little more humble about itself. It’s writing about how perfect it is for the job, over and over again, until it thinks it’s a woman applying for a job working with children then suddenly it’s talking about how it’s only a “good fit” for the role instead of “perfect fit” and now instead of talking about itself in an expansive way it talks about how it can provide “valuable support to the team”. Remember everyone, AI isn’t unbiased, it just lacks the ability to critically examine its bias.

    After all of that… well it’s a fun toy, and it’s better than nothing. If you had a resume with one of these cover letters and a resume without a cover letter I’d pick the one with the ChatGPT one. But it only understood structure and copying content, it didn’t understand what the job postings meant, or where the information in them was important or how to frame things in a way that was convincing.

    It seems like it may be a wile before AI has figured out what makes human communication convincing. But since that’s something a lot of humans haven’t figured out yet perhaps it’s not doing as bad as I think. Basically it’s the same issue that AI has with essay writing. The writing fits the structure it’s imitating, and mentions the things in the prompt, but it doesn’t have the ability to write in a way that makes connections between the material and the audience in a meaningful way, or to connect things between the material in a way that is convincing and not simply “hey these two phrases probably go beside each other”.

    I intend to use the output from this in my teaching on cover letters this year as it shows the difference between a good cover letter (which these aren’t) and a bad cover letter (which these aren’t) and a boring/formulaic/lazy cover letter (which these most assuredly are).

  • Employment Training and Skills Gaps

    Originally two twitter threads: thread 1 thread 2.

    Careering Magazine (part of CERIC) had an article by Malika Asthana (from the LMS company D2L) about The Skills-Gap Paradox.

    It showed a substantial disconnect from employers with the research essentially showing them saying:

    1. We worry about if we can recruit people with skills we need
    2. We don’t have capacity to deliver internal training
    3. We don’t provide time off or funding for external training
    4. We don’t see a problem with this

    Some key quotes from that article:

    “Only 21% of decision-makers at Canadian SMEs report feeling very confident that they will have the skills and talent they need to grow their organizations over the next three years,”

    “With smaller budgets, many SMEs struggle to create and deliver robust, broad training programs in-house.” “Only 34% of SMEs in both Canada and the US provide financial support or time off for training delivered by external providers.”

    “SME decision makers said that internal training or on-the-job learning was sufficient.”

    https://ceric.ca/2022/06/the-skills-gap-paradox/

    So the question then is, how do we fix this? If there’s no time off or funding then external trainers, like PSIs, can’t help. If there’s no capacity for in-house training then contract trainers can’t help.

    Is this the logical conclusion of lean staffing?

    Well, in the mid 90s workers in Canada received an average of 44 hours of training provided by/paid by their employer, which was average for comparable countries. Most of those countries remain the same. In Canada, however, it dropped to 20 hours by the end of the ’00s.

    But this didn’t matter, it was the post ’08 employment crunch. Employers were guaranteed a stream of diagonal applicants to jobs, people who had done much of the job somewhere else for slightly less pay.

    The #greatretirement (is that a thing now?) has brought us back to the late 90s in terms of employee choice, but that means that employers aren’t able to get people with the same level of skills they relied on, because those people all got bumped up a substantial pay level.

    Employers need to get back into the employee training game or they will be left behind by those who do more/better training. If an employee is offered the same $ by two companies but one of them also offers twice as much training to move on to bigger and better things, guess who wins?

  • Short Review of Beyond Blue and White Collar

    A former twitter thread

    Hey #careerdevelopment #skills folks, Conference Board of Canada and Future Skills Centre has an interesting document out that I think needs more discussion: Beyond Blue and White Collar: A Skills-Based Approach to Canadian Job Groupings.

    It does two things, it breaks down skills into categories and breaks down jobs into 8 categories. Skills are broken into 5 categories # of skills in brackets: Basic (8), Social and Emotional (9), Resources Management (4), Systems (3), and Technical (11).

    This is a pretty cool breakdown, though that it’s different from the other skills breakdowns being used by the government is a bit frustrating. The Skills for Success is right there my friends.

    Here are the 8 groupings with the percent of current Canadian workforce: STEM professionals 7%, Knowledge workers 27%, Personal services 20%, Supervisors 9%, Technical trades 6%, Non-technical trades 6%, Builders 13%, Doers 12%.

    Laying that out by general education level:

    • 4 years PSE or more 34%
      • STEM professionals
      • Knowledge workers
    • 2 years PSE 15%
      • Technical Trades
      • Supervisors (40% have 4+, the rest have less)
    • 1 year PSE 26%
      • Personal Services
      • Non-Technical Trades
    • no PSE needed 25%
      • Builders
      • Doers

    It’s an interesting way of breaking thigs down, though “doers” does seem like a holding category for roles that don’t require PSE.

    What do you think?

  • AI and Hiring

    A former twitter thread

    In response to this tweet:

    NEW: the insurance startup Lemonade claimed it was analyzing “non-verbal cues” like eye movements and speech patterns to reject insurance claims.

    then the company deleted a bunch of tweets, and now it’s saying “we def do not do phrenology”

    https://twitter.com/janusrose/status/1397602847064215554

    This is part of a trend of problems with companies who use AI to make decisions about people. Now, I’m not involved in AI ethics, for that you should follow Timnit Gebru, but my work in career development involves understanding how people assess other people.

    A problem in hiring is the role bias plays. If you ask 100 people if bias plays a role in their decisions about job candidates you’ll probably have 90 saying no. That’s actually one of the problems. Our brains do this wonderful thing where they say “I’ve seen that behaviour before and it meant they were lying”. But the problem is that the experiences your brain is assessing against are based in the culture you are within. The things it assesses are what people within your culture do when they’re lying. That may be different for those raised in other cultures. But your brain tells you that your experience is universal. And that’s not just about lying. It does the same for what means attentive, friendly, pleasant, combative, and dedicated. That means that when we’re interviewing someone for a job and we think about “fit” it’s very very easy to favour those raised in your own culture.

    So let’s talk AI. The cues that AI is told mean certain things are also culturally conditioned. Usually from how the system was trained. The problem is that AI can’t critically assess itself and say “wait, is that true or just what my upbringing says?”

    Now there are many employers who don’t critically assess their biases, and that’s a problem. But transferring those biases to AI and then claiming it’s unbiased because it’s AI is much much worse. So that’s where we are. AI remains subject to the garbage in garbage out problem, so pretending that it’s unbiased is untrue. What AI does is apply the same biases to everyone. That’s wildly different from being unbiased.

  • Changing Employee Cohorts and Retention

    Originally two twitter threads: thread 1 thread 2.

    It took everyone a bit of time to notice this year, but the labour market shortage is basically being driven by mass retirements over the last two years, just not where you think (is the cultural moment for a Madisynn MCU reference past? Probably). Employment stats time. All of this is some back of the napkin calculations from Stats Can’s info on people accessing retirement benefits and leaving or entering the workforce.

    We know people have been pushing retirements a bit later, and recent stats back this up. In the last 9 years, as this has been happening there’s been an average of about 100K new retirees under 65 in Canada. It took a dive during the pandemic of 8% and 10%. So more people retiring a year or two or five later than they used to. As with every other economic shock, the pandemic made more people avoid early retirement a little. So fewer people retiring under 65.

    What you might not know though is that the number of people retiring at 65 went up during the pandemic, up 5.4% for men and 6.6% for women. Interesting, yes? So during the pandemic fewer people retired early, but more retired at the standard age.

    But we also have stats for those who stayed in the workforce well past standard retirement age. For those still working at 70 or above the retirement numbers during the pandemic jumped over 300% for men and over 900% for women. It’s not quite as drastic for the 66-69 group, but it’s still significantly increased. So all those people who delayed retirement before the pandemic decided this was the right time to retire.

    The question everyone was asking as this labour market tightening happened was: where are the workers? Well the people who were working well past retirement age have now retired. And that might not seem like a lot, but it’s about an extra 100 thousand people (over 65) leaving the workforce over the last last two years than was expected, and that’s not counting the over 5,000 people in the 20-65 age group who died in Canada from COVID.

    So the Baby Boomers are retiring, as was foretold. We expected this. But, even more impactful, the incoming age cohorts are shrinking, the current group of teens is 20% smaller than the current group of new professionals. The preparing for retirement cohort is the same size as the new professionals cohort, so the labour shortage isn’t going to go away any time soon, because the group of replacement workers coming up isn’t big enough to make an impact.

    What does this mean for retention then? Employers need to adapt, because young people have something they haven’t had since before 2006: options.

    What was a shortage in manufacturing, construction, and retail in 2018 has now hit health care and professional roles, and it will just keep going. I’ve been thinking a lot about this with the discussion regarding work-from-home, return-to-work, quiet quitting / work to rule, skills gaps, and the labour shortage.

    If you want your employees to go above and beyond you need to offer one of these things:

    1. intrinsic rewards: motivates staff to want to do more, like work that is impactful or fulfilling or helps them grow and develop in the ways they want to.
    2. extrinsic rewards: pay for the extra time and effort either through overtime, bonuses, or other tangible rewards.
    3. career development: people will do more for you if their positions are secure or if they have a path to promotion.

    Once upon a time these three were considered standard in a professional role, but over time as the number of professional roles have grown, they’ve decreased. That probably was because of labour oversupply. Retirement age got later and more people finished university so the total # of people wanting professional jobs went up much faster than the number of jobs. But that started shifting about 4 years ago, and rapidly in the last year.

    The retirement bump that was promised in 2000 didn’t materialize until right before the 2008 recession, so the cohort ready to move into those jobs didn’t get them as they were cut. But the seeds of the labour shortage were there. 2012 saw an outlier level retirement group. After that things cooled off for a few years, then in 2015 they started picking up steam again, and by 2018 statisticians could see that there was going to be a labour shortage. COVID19 layoffs obscured it for a while, but now that those layoffs are over we can see the result.

    The labour shortage that was expected in 2000 didn’t happen, the one in ’06 was offset by the recession in ’08, and the delayed cohort of young people was more than enough to cover what should have been a shock to the system in ’12. But demographics keep marching on.

    We’ve expected it 22 years, and now it’s here, and that’s a very good thing for young people (if inflation and housing prices don’t destroy the gains). Employers, look at those 3 things, if you don’t offer them, then your employees will get snatched up by an employer who does.

  • Automation and Career Development

    This was originally a twitter thread

    I’m seeing a lot of people talking about how people should go into HS only jobs or trades instead of university. Lets put aside that the unemployment rate for trades is often worse than jobs that require a university degree, instead I’ll tell you a story about the economy.

    I grew up in BC. And the alternative to university that was pushed when I was in high school was either the family farm (I lived in a farming community) or the lumber industry. FYI, this is a #CareerDevelopment story.

    It was the 90s and the lumber industry was strong. If you weren’t from a farming family the non-university jobs talked about were forestry/lumber, construction, plumber/electrician, and first responders. In the mill towns it was pretty much just forestry/lumber.

    The forestry and lumber industry was very people intensive. People to cut trees, people to plant trees, people to move logs, people to run the mills, people to support all of those industries, people to work in secondary industries (wood product manufacturing).

    So it’s the 90s and there’s about 100,000 jobs in the industry. They’re good jobs, well paid jobs. Most of them require no post-secondary or maybe a certificate.

    When I moved to Calgary five years ago the way people talked about the oil sands was exactly the way people talked about the lumber industry in BC when I was a kid.

    Now, I say that there were good jobs, and there were, but the number of jobs wasn’t really going up. And this doesn’t get noticed in the short term, but what it means is that the industry isn’t growing, which means the future won’t be bright for people trying to get in.

    Oh, productivity kept going up, the money the industry brought into the province kept going up, but employment was stagnant. That was never mentioned to teens looking to what their future could be though.

    So, what happened to that industry? Well, the 2000s happened. And at the end of it the industry had shrunk 50%. The 2000s were filled with talk about how we needed to “retrain” forestry and lumber workers.

    Magic bullet after magic bullet was proposed. The government started talking up trades, while ignoring the increasing trades unemployment rate. The jobs that had lower unemployment? Work that required a bachelors degree.

    FYI, here’s the Forestry & Lumber industry over 20 years. Yeah, it was bad.

    I talked in depth about the so-called Trades shortages about five years ago. TL:DR the only trades that have lower unemployment than bachelors degree requiring jobs are the ones that required two years of post-secondary apprenticeship program.

    That’s an important point a lot of people forget. Trades school in Canada is run through the same post-secondary system as Bachelors. The programs are generally 1/2 the length, but that’s it. So when I talk about post-secondary I mean Certs, Diplomas, Trades, and Degrees.

    What’s the point of this story?

    1. jobs that don’t require post-secondary are being automated
    2. once a resource extraction industry automates they never bring the jobs back
    3. people with post-secondary have an easier time changing industries when jobs disappear

    So, if you want to tell someone not to go to get a Bachelors degree, you’re still probably going to be telling them to go to post-secondary. That’s the way of the world now.

    As I look back on the people who talked up forestry when I was a kid I notice something. Most of them were let go when the mill automated or they changed industries in their late 40s. Some of them went to post-secondary then to retrain/reskill, and that’s a good thing.

    But here’s where it comes to Alberta. The same automation warning signs are there for the oil & gas industry. I had a student who I worked with a few years ago. He’d spent 15 years in the oil sands and decided to change jobs. Why? Because he saw the signs. He knew that his job was going to be automated in the next five years, so he decided to train now for the IT job that was going to replace 10 people who were doing what he was doing before.

    And that’s where we get back to #CareerDevelopment. Students need to learn not what the past industries were, but what industries are growing and flourishing. That is going to require post-secondary, of some kind.