SHRC, Statistics Canada unveil ambitious initiative to detail IT jobs landscape

Years of industry demand for accurate human resource tracking in the new media sector could shortly be answered by an ambitious new Software Human Resource Council (SHRC)/Statistics Canada partnership to enumerate the IT industry. A massive new survey was announced at Softworld 2002 in Prince Edward Island by the non-profit SHRC to find out how many Canadians are employed in information technology trades, including in the cultural industries. The data should put an end to the dearth of hard numbers in the sector right now, though its sustainability as an annual or even less frequent project as part of the country’s census is uncertain. The survey, now in its initial stages, will poll 21,000 private-sector employers, 35,000 employees in the public and private sectors, 2,000 divisions and directorates in the public sector and cover 18 regions in the country including cities, provinces and territories. An ambitious undertaking, results are expected to be published around December 2003. SHRC president Paul Swinwood tells Canadian NEW MEDIA the survey is expected to uncover a wide swath of information about IT workers related to education, job demands, retention issues and training needs in addition to finally providing such basic data as how many people are employed and where in the sector. The new survey will follow a pilot survey conducted by SHRC last year on the computer systems design, insurance carriers, and architectural and engineering services sectors. The pilot was conducted to test a new classification scheme for employment in the software industry developed by SHRC called the Occupational Skills Profile Model (OSPM). The OSPM covers 24 job streams that include everything from code jockeys to web designers, interactive media developers, and graphic designers/illustrators. The job descriptions have already been embedded in Statistic Canada’s occupational classifications and the 2000 Census will reflect them. But, says Swinwood, some of the regions have too few of some classes for the bureau to be able to release the data given small sample sizes. That’s not a problem this most recent survey will run into. Swinwood says the results will have policy implications across the spectrum of government programs, including those at Human Resources Development Canada, and Citizenship and Immigration. Training can be customized, for example, to meet high demands in one area or another, and it’s possible immigration requirements could be eased based on the demonstrated skills of applicants when a job class suffers from low numbers of skilled workers. He won’t say, however, whether the survey can be undertaken again. The final cost of the initiative will have to be weighed against the information it highlights before those sorts of choices can be made. This time around, the survey is being undertaken by Statistics Canada’s Small Business and Special Surveys Division. For several years, efforts to have StatsCan’s Cultural Surveys Section do the work have been stymied as the bureau has pleaded a lack of stable, long-term funding from Cabinet or private-sector partners for various proposed initiatives. In November 1999, a Canadian Heritage report recognized a lack of timely and reliable statistical data to quantify new media’s national contribution to economic growth (CNM, Nov. 9/99), and in December 2000 StatsCan was contemplating a doomed proposal for a Cultural Statistics Program Improvement Initiative (CNM, Jan. 24/01). During the intervening time, however, Swinwood says the SHRC has been working behind the scenes on this latest announced survey, which will accomplish many of the goals of earlier proposals. Industry representatives have long argued that while Delvinia Inc.’s Interactive Media Producers Survey help fill in some of the blanks, interactive media employment in non-IT or cultural industries hasn’t been accounted for.

SHRC, Statistics Canada unveil ambitious initiative to detail IT jobs landscape

Broadcast | September 18, 2002

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