Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. In the context of the skills challenges facing Canada, the committee's study on youth employment is valuable and timely.
I am Sarah Anson-Cartwright, director of skills policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
l'll start with a conundrum. Canada spends more money per capita on education than most other nations, we have the highest attainment rates in post-secondary education among OECD countries, and yet we know that many young people, including post-secondary graduates, are either underemployed or unemployed. You've heard from experts that the labour market situation is not as dire for young people as it was in previous post-recessionary periods, and yet we are all concerned, and rightly so.
At the Canadian Chamber, our members are preoccupied with the skills gap in our labour force. Economists are telling us that the skills gap is not as bad as we think, and yet for every employer struggling to find people with the right skills for the positions open, it is bad. It is the same for young people who are struggling to find gainful employment related to their field of study or in the occupation they trained for.
The public discussion of the skills gap and mismatches must not undermine young people's belief in the value of post-secondary education. Canada needs a both/and response as opposed to an either/or response. That is, we need more apprentices entering and completing in skilled trades, more college and polytechnic graduates, and more university graduates. Simply put, we may not have enough welders and pipefitters, but we don't have enough engineers, physicians, or computer scientists either.
In Canada, we invest so much in young people's education but we could invest a lot more time and effort in guiding their choice of post-secondary programs, fields of study, and potential occupations.
The question then is how to help more young people study or train for the kinds of jobs that will be available. The answer is information, more specifically, labour market information. We need to provide better information for youth to make more informed choices on post-secondary programs and career paths. Our focus on education and skills training will fall short if we cannot help people become qualified for the jobs available and encourage them to locate where there are jobs. Additionally, we can do a better job at cultivating more young entrepreneurs who can live and work wherever they feel a business will thrive.
For all the investment we make in the education of our young people, consider how little attention there is on research and planning for post-secondary studies and careers. How many students or parents have looked at the forecast demand for their potential occupations and where that demand will be?
Government should push labour market information onto high school students and their parents. Government needs to urge them to seriously look at the job market forecasts. Let's do our best to help young people make more informed decisions on their future education and occupations. Let's give them the best opportunities to find employment in Canada's dynamic labour market and economy.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.