Future of Work

by Jasmine Gill

Many employers in Canada want to get better at hiring and advancing workers with disabilities – but the results are lagging. PPF’s Access Ability leverages policy, research and training to identify ways that businesses and policymakers can ensure workers with disabilities are able to contribute their full potential while fixing the persistence of exclusionary bias in recruitment, hiring and training.

COVID-19 has made it clear that Canada needs a strong domestic manufacturing sector to produce what it needs. Industrial production has been stagnant in the country for two decades and it’s a must for Canada to create and sustain a resilient manufacturing economy that will also be more competitive in a globalized economy and that will create good jobs while minimizing environmental impacts.

This paper outlines places where technology can or is providing innovative approaches to skills training. This includes the assessment of skills, development of skills, and the alignment of supply and demand — including advancing bias-free recruitment. With real-world examples from around the world, it also reviews how technology can improve access, diversity and workplace inclusivity amongst equity-seeking groups.

Past Event

Tech-Enabled Innovations in the Skills and Employment Ecosystem | Skills Next

Action is needed to alleviate gender barriers: Good intentions are no longer enough. Despite efforts to improve diversity in the workplace, gender inequality remains both an issue of social justice and an equally compelling economic priority. Yet efforts to advance women’s economic inclusion continue to be hampered by the lack of access to information. This report summarizes existing research and prevailing issues surrounding gender inequality, including those exacerbated by COVID-19, and points to further research that needs to be done on initiatives to reduce gender inequalities.

The COVID-19 crisis has derailed the careers of millions of Canadians. To support them, workforce leaders, and policy and decision makers need to mobilize education and training systems in some key ways – starting with robust labour market information and laying the foundation for a national system of lifelong learning.

Before the COVID-19 crisis hit, there was already a need for public policy in Canada to adjust. Now, with the economy wounded and international cooperation frayed, we must consider the merits of a more fundamental rebuilding job. Through a series of reports and conferences, this project will tap into the best established and ascending policy brains in an effort to help policymakers weigh priorities and trade-offs and forge a far-reaching rebuild plan.

Gig work & gig workers are on the rise, fuelled by technology that makes this form of work more easily accessible. What does this mean for Canada’s labour market and how should we respond? Understanding how workers enter, navigate and experience the gig economy is a critical component to better understanding what policies are required to best protect and support them. This report explores what we know, and what we need to know, about the nature of Canada’s gig economy and the experiences of its workers.

According to Statistics Canada, nearly 5 million workers shifted to remote work by the end of March 2020. In her first blog post for the Skills for the Post-Pandemic World project, Anjum Sultana discusses what the 'new normal' looks like for her and many workers like her all across the country, and explores the challenges that organizations, individuals, and policy-makers face with the work-from-home transition.

The Future of Work is here to stay. This new PPF project explores the policy implications for skills, training, and employment for workers and learners across Canada.

Indigenous businesses are growing and — importantly — creating employment for others. Further, self-employment and entrepreneurship is increasing. If there is an opportunity for the next generation, and for current adult workers, to leapfrog into the future of Canadian work, it may very well be through Indigenous-led business.

How can Canada use its highly skilled workforce as we transition to a knowledge economy? In their new report, AJ Tibando and Arvind Gupta explore Palette Inc., a not-for-profit platform that was created to upskill diverse and non-traditional workers in an ICT sector biased against hiring them. It looks like the Palette model is working.

Artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, the sharing economy and other emerging technologies were expected to upend the nature of how people work, eliminate an array of routine and repetitive tasks, and put pressure on social support frameworks designed for a different era. These impacts expected to be felt in the near to medium term suddenly find themselves present. The need to reinvent Canada's social and economic policy frameworks has a newfound urgency.

An urban-rural scan of potential long-term effects of the future of work shows the negative effects of a displaced workforce will be felt disproportionately among rural residents, who make up the majority of high-risk employment sectors that will succumb to technology-induced disruption. Understanding how these changes could affect urban centres vs. rural areas is a crucial ingredient to long-term policymaking and key to creating an effective place-based policy agenda for Canada to manage those disruptions and keep an urban-rural economic divide that already exists from growing