Human Resources committee  That's a good question. I think we have a number of analyses showing that people occupying different jobs have different levels of literacy, which is expected. You would also expect that those with more education earn a higher wage and thus are considered much more productive. So

Human Resources committee  Maryanne is mentioning there's a professor at the University of Ottawa who has looked at economic growth according to the literacy level of the population. He has shown a clear relationship. I think if literacy increased by 1%, economic growth grows by 3%—I'm not exactly sure of

Human Resources committee  I could send you several studies on that topic. In fact, both participation rates and program completion rates vary according to people's socio-economic level. That is true for aboriginals. I have the impression that there are also nuances based on access. However, the results ar

Human Resources committee  It is 42 per cent for all people between the ages of 16 and 65.

Human Resources committee  I believe it was a percentage.

Human Resources committee  That is correct: 42 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 16 and 65 are below level three.

Human Resources committee  That is correct. There is a relationship between age and the level of literacy. The younger generations generally have higher literacy levels. Moreover, there is, in fact, a larger proportion of immigrants whose level of literacy is below level three.

Human Resources committee  Graphs have been around for a long time. They show, for example, the relationship between the unemployment rate and level of education. I will send you the graph. Four levels of education are very clearly distinguished: people who have a university degree, people who have another

Human Resources committee  Well, we would have hoped to have gains. There are not enough countries now to really situate Canada, but hopefully there's a second wave of that survey that will take place this year. There will be five to six additional countries that will run an identical survey, so we'll be

Human Resources committee  That's a good question. I don't have the chart in front of me, but there are only six to seven countries on that chart. Those are the countries that have done the survey in 2003. It's the second time the survey has been conducted internationally, I guess. The first time was in 19

Human Resources committee  We do not have those figures, but about 5 per cent of workers have more than one job. The phenomenon is not very widespread. It is not a high percentage.

Human Resources committee  Absolutely. You are quite right.

Human Resources committee  I can give you my opinion, and then Alain can give you more details. One of the slides shows all possible sources of employees. Immigration is one of the major sources. However, if people who reach retirement age remain on the labour market, or if we can increase employment amon

Human Resources committee  You're right, there were conflicting statistics when we released our statistics. What we looked at was the proportion of 20- to 24-year-olds who have high school diplomas. In Ontario I think it's 9% or 10%. The 30% statistics that you are referring to, in my mind, refer to the pr

Human Resources committee  That is a good question. I don't think we have completely finished studying the relationship among immigrants, literacy and employability. The literacy assessment we conducted was in Canada's official languages — that is, English and French. However, there is no doubt that most i