I was somewhat involved with that study and I know a little bit about how the data was gathered for it.
First of all the electrical and electronic engineers was one category of occupation that they identified, one of those national occupational codes that I was talking about. Another one, which was actually of a larger scope, is what they called information systems analysts and consultants. That was another of the classifications, which is these business technology hybrids that I was talking about.
The data shows that over the past 10 years that particular category of employee, along with various kinds of managers in IT and communications, has grown dramatically. The numbers are a little all over the map, but it has gone up by at least 60% over the past 10 years, from 100,000 to maybe 160,000. By some accounts it's up to 200,000. That's astonishing growth, and we're not preparing. The post-secondary programs that are creating these kinds of skill sets are putting out maybe 2,000 people a year.
The issue with data quality that ICTC and other organizations face is that they're largely hamstrung by two factors. One is these national occupational classifications that don't provide sufficient detail. Karna was talking about, do you have a Java programmer versus a C programmer or what have you? We can't get that kind of information. We can't provide it to people who are making choices, whether they're post-secondary institutions that are designing programs, students who are making career choices, or even employers who want to find out whether there is a skill shortage area or surplus. If there's a surplus and it happens to be in B.C., people can be recruited from B.C.
So one factor is the granularity and frequency and regionality of the data collection, and then the second factor, as I said before, is the business model we use to do that.
I would say that, in gross terms, that research is very good. But because of those structural limitations, which, by the way, they actually acknowledge in the report—that the report itself was limited by the kinds of factors I've just been talking about....