The Journey of Ontario Apprentices: From High School to the Workforce and Diving into the Trades: An In-depth Look at 10 Apprenticeship Programs in Ontario

The Journey of Ontario Apprentices: From High School to the Workforce was written by Ken Chatoor and Amy Kaufman; Diving into the Trades: An In-depth Look at 10 Apprenticeship Programs in Ontario was written by Ken Chatoor and Sarah Brumwell ​The Journey of Ontario Apprentices: From High School to the Workforce Diving into the Trades: […]

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Jackie Pichette – Survey of Canadians reinforces need for clear, standard definition of “microcredential”

Micro mania — that’s what we called the mix of excitement and uncertainty brewing around microcredentials in Ontario last Spring. Since then, HEQCO partnered with the Business + Higher Education Roundtable (BHER) to help address some of the uncertainty surrounding microcredentials.  We’re building an evidence base that anyone from the college, university or government sectors can draw from […]

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Jeffrey Napierala – Caught in the middle: Many postsecondary students are struggling financially

While postsecondary students have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in numerous ways, they have been hit particularly hard in their ability to find work and earn wages over the summer. Roughly two-thirds report that their income will be disrupted by the pandemic compared to just one-third of other adults in Canada. While several federal aid programs have […]

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Amy Kaufman – Whither new grads? Labour market prospects and outcomes of the class of 2020

At the start of the year, the class of 2020 was expecting to graduate from college or university into a healthy labour market. Instead, the pandemic has reshaped the economy — and the career trajectories of new grads — virtually overnight. What does this mean for grads entering the labour market, and how can governments ensure they […]

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Jackie Pichette and Rosanna Tamburri — An agile system of lifelong learning is needed now more than ever

Measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 have left the economy reeling. Employment in Ontario fell by a record 403,000 jobs, or 5.3%, in March from February, according to Statistics Canada. The province’s unemployment rate rose to 7.6%, up from 5.5%, the largest monthly increase on record.* No one could have predicted the severity of the COVID-19 […]

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Amy Kaufman – Let’s hear it for our dedicated workers, and the institutions that trained them

HEQCO CEO David Trick has mused in recent weeks (see here and here) about how Ontario’s postsecondary education sector can look to lessons from the past to help us deal with today’s exceptional circumstances. This idea of finding precedents for the unprecedented is one that we will return to, but this week I’d like to take a moment […]

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David Trick – Precedents for the unprecedented (part 2): The year the music stopped

Last week I looked at whether Ontario’s experience with the double cohort in 2003 could offer some lessons for the coming years. If large numbers of students decide to take a gap year this September and enrol in September 2021, the planning processes adopted in 2003 might bring some order to an enrolment surge. Sadly, Ontario […]

Skills, Signals and Labour Market Outcomes: An Analysis of the 2012 Longitudinal and International Study of Adults

Skills, education credentials important predictors of income and employment status When it comes to predicting the future income and employment status of Canadians, which has more influence: skills, such as literacy and numeracy, or postsecondary credentials? A new report published by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) concludes that skills and credentials are […]

Immigrant Labour Market Outcomes and Skills Differences in Canada

Immigrants more likely to be unemployed than Canadian-born adults, study finds Immigrant workers were more likely to be unemployed than Canadian-born adults, even when other factors such as skill levels were taken into account, according to a new study published by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). The probability of being unemployed declined […]