6.4 Canada ’s Preparedness for Low-Carbon Growth: Detailed State-of-Play – Labour market and skills
Framing the Future: Embracing the Low-Carbon Economy
Labour market and skills
The global low-carbon transition will, in the long term, influence the structure of the Canadian economy, irrespective of domestic policy. Industries will evolve — some will shrink, some may disappear, others will grow — and new and innovative industries will emerge. Such shifts will undoubtedly alter Canadian livelihoods. The extent to which and pace at which the economy and its component industries reduce their carbon intensity, and Canada’s capacity to reap the economic rewards of aiding global low-carbon efforts, influence and are influenced by the country’s collective human capital.
The labour market and skills category appears to have the least quantitative rigour across existing lowcarbon growth plans. Our exploration covers the implications of the low-carbon transition on the workforce and the preparedness of the workforce to meet its labour needs.
PROFILE IN BRIEF
A low-carbon economy will require talents and skills to match. Current general unemployment rates and labour shortages in particular sectors hint at a potential mismatch in Canada’s labour market and are a reminder of the importance of preventing such structural imbalance. Labour shortages are especially prevalent in resource sectors, and while much of this attention has been focused on the acute labour shortages in the oil sands industry, labour shortage concerns exist broadly across the energy and resource sectors. LCGS industries, a large proportion of which involve energy production, transfer, and end use, are also exposed to this risk, and representatives of many LCGS industries have either experienced or anticipate a lack of skilled labour to meet their needs.303
So what constitutes the low-carbon economy, what industries comprise it, how many people does it employ, and what skills will be required in the future? Insufficient information exists to confidently answer these questions for a “green” economy,304 let alone the low-carbon subset. ECO Canada, Canada’s sector councilqq for the environmental sector, attempted to define and quantify the size of the Canada’s green economy in 2010. Their study results suggests it is sizeable and rapidly growing: an environmental sector comprising 682,000 workers in 2010, up from 530,000 in 2007,rr and a further two million Canadians spending a portion of their time at work on environmental activities.305
Two factors make it difficult to estimate employment within the low-carbon economy. One relates to definitions. The continued lack of a consistent definition of the scope or breadth of what constitutes “lowcarbon” not only prevents accurate estimates of the size of Canada’s low-carbon economy but also prevents comparisons among jurisdictions. The second is a lack of attention to baselines. The tendency exists for studies to focus more heavily on anticipated future employment, notably relating to investment decisions, than on statistics on present employment.
LOW-CARBON PREPAREDNESS
When it comes to labour markets and skills, we assessed low-carbon preparedness on four fronts: (1) current employment in LCGS sectors relative to employment overall, (2) potential growth in low-carbon employment, (3) availability of policy-relevant information, and (4) ability to retain and attract low-carbon workers.
The magnitude of current employment in the low-carbon economy is small. Analysis commissioned by the NRT to estimate the present and potential future size of Canada’s low-carbon economy estimates that Canada’s LCGS sectors directly employed in the range of 42,000ss people in 2010.306 This estimate is largely consistent with analysis for Canadian cleantech industries, which places direct employment in cleantech at 44,000 and employment in LCGS sectors exclusively at close to 33,000.307 Industry association studies and government reports further support these macro-estimates and suggest that they may be on the conservative side.tt Inclusion of indirect and induced employment effects more than doubles the contribution of the LCGS sector to employment (96,000).308
Expected growth in LCGS sectors has several implications for Canada’s labour markets. The years 2008 to 2010 saw exceptional annual employment growth rates in cleantech at 11%.309 The energy sector as a whole is expected to undergo substantial transformation as it reduces its carbon intensity. At present, it alone employs 300,000 people, 100,000 of which are employed in the electricity sector.310 As Canada’s economy reduces its carbon intensity, the electricity sector will see substantial employment growth. Expert opinion and trend analysis indicates “emerging/very high growth” expectations for LCGS sectors.311 NRT’s own analysis suggests that even in the absence of additional policy, direct employment in LCGS sectors will grow to 91,000 FTE by 2050 with total employment (including indirect and induced) reaching 224,000 FTE.
Canada has the talent and educational capacity to embark on its low-carbon transition; however, the country continues to lack the information necessary to effectively plan for future low-carbon labour demand. In the NRT’s report Measuring Up, we acknowledged that “data collection for education and skills development needs to be improved.”312 The same conclusion still holds true. The establishment of ECO Canada as an environmental sector council was a necessary start, and that organization is working to fill knowledge gaps on Canada’s green labour markets. A federal working group on green jobs established by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) is also a promising early step.
The fact remains that Canada’s statistical capacity is not attuned to tracking growth in the low-carbon economy. Other nations also face this problem, but leaders are moving quickly to build the required knowledge foundation.313
Some major industrialized nations as well as many emerging economies have moved forward with aggressive low-carbon growth plans, many of which are linked to job creation and skills strategies. As noted by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in its foundational report comparing 21 such strategies, coherence between these two priorities is the key to a successful low-carbon transition.314
Table 16
[qq] Sector councils are tasked with assessing and implementing solutions to human resource needs across employers, workers, educators, professional associations, and governments.
[rr] The data includes employees who spent more than half their time performing environmental work activities.
[ss] All employment numbers are expressed in terms of full-time equivalents (FTE).
[tt] CanWEA estimates that in 2011, the wind sector alone created 13,000 person-years of employment exclusive of operation and maintenance (Canadian Wind Energy Association 2012); the Government of Ontario has stated that by mid-2011, it had already created 20,000 clean energy jobs through the policies associated with the Ontario Green Energy Act, and indicates that by the end of 2012, a total of 50,000 of these jobs will be created (Ontario Ministry of Energy ND). In B.C. the Globe Foundation estimates that employment in green buildings, energy management and efficiency, clean and alternative energy, and carbon finance and investment are directly responsible for almost 70,000 jobs as of 2008 (GLOBE Foundation 2010).
[303] ECO Canada 2010b
[304] ECO Canada 2010b
[305] ECO Canada 2010a, 2010b
[306] Stiebert 2012
[307] Analytica Advisors 2010
[308] Stiebert 2012
[309] Analytica Advisors 2010
[310] Calvert and Cohen 2011
[311] ECO Canada 2010b
[312] National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy 2010
[313] International Labour Office 2011b
[314] International Labour Office 2011b
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