Introduction to Labour Market Information for Career Decision Making

This chapter surveys LMI that is useful in a job search or in career decision making, including national, regional and local LMI sources.

The vast amount of information available and the need to have specific information to make informed choices in an ever-changing labour market have led to a basic change in how a counsellor counsels. Many clients expect to get answers from the practitioner. It is impossible for one person to know all the information across all occupations, so those providing career services are becoming information brokers, steering clients and students to different sources that suit their need for individualized information. Although practitioners cannot know all the answers, they must be aware of all the facilities for clients or students to find the answers they need. The counsellor or teacher is only the first step in a series of places the would-be labour force entrant has to go.

Practitioners, clients and students entering the world of labour market information have three tasks to complete together.

The client or student then moves on to the final step - the action role - in the career decision-making process. He or she makes use of the information, for example, by enrolling in a program, becoming an apprentice, applying for a job, arranging for specialized training or moving to a geographical location where there are more opportunities.

The addition of labour market information to the process of career decision making encourages an additional set of questions beyond the in-depth analysis of personal aptitudes, values and interests, and the study of what job or occupation description best develops those personal interests and aptitudes. Clients and students should now incorporate questions, such as the following, into their career decision making.

Some of the above questions are from Improved Career Decision Making in a Changing World (Ettinger, 1991) and Occupational Outlook (Alfred, 1992).

Basic research and analytical skills - including the ability to ask the right question to get the information - are necessary for effective career decision making. Those providing career services need to develop strong research skills to locate appropriate sources of labour market information, both published and unpublished sources. More importantly, they need to pass on these same basic skills to their clients and students. This way, the practitioner will be providing a lifelong skill that will be used many times during a client's career.

Statistics Canada and Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) are the two major sources of government labour market information. Both departments produce information at the national, regional and local levels.

Much of the raw data used by HRDC comes from Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS is "a monthly survey (sample) conducted by Statistics Canada designed to represent all persons in the population 15 years of age and over. The survey is used to determine the unemployment rate, number of employed and a variety of other statistics. The interviews for the survey are carried out in approximately 52,800 households across the country" (LMI Handbook, Oct. 1990, p. 2-4).

Other Statistics Canada sources used by HRDC and other government departments are the Censuses of Canada, The Labour Market Activity Survey (LMS) and The Survey on Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID). To be useful as LMI, these data sources usually require further analysis such as that carried out by Tourism Canada on the following page.

These data sources provide the basis for many Statistics Canada and HRDC publications useful in a job search and for career planning.

Illustration of the Labour Market Activity Survey

Tourism Canada used data from Statistics Canada's Labour Market Activity Survey to answer the question: Does tourism provide jobs for the unemployed?

Tourism is recognized to be an industry with above average employment growth at a time when Canada is experiencing high rates of unemployment. 1994 Tourism Canada study tracked the movement of 2.5 million Canadians in and out of unemployment between 1988 and 1990. Results show that over 13 percent of people who came out of unemployment found a job in tourism. This is 1.5 times greater than tourism's share of overall employment.

The study showed that people who found work in tourism after unemployment:

came from a vast array of occupations, with less than one third holding a tourism job before unemployment;
found a tourism job quickly C half searched for four or fewer consecutive weeks before they started work C the most common method used to find work was to contact employers directly;
are exceptionally young (60 percent were under 25 compared to 43 percent of those who found work in non-tourism industries);
have low levels of formal education, which is partly explained by the young age profile of these workers who are only part way though their education;
were more likely to enter the food and beverage sector, followed by the accommodation sector;
were likely to be employed in a small business;
are predominantly women in accommodation/food, travel trade and attractions sectors; and
are predominantly men in adventure tourism/outdoor recreation and transportation sectors of tourism.

The study concludes:

Tourism has an impressive potential to provide more jobs and while all may not be of high quality or provide adequate compensation for those supporting families, they will offer work to people who have been unemployed, and for the young unemployed in particular, tourism offers a way back into the employed labour force.

SOURCE: TOURISM CANADA: Study of Tourism-Related Employment & The Unemployed, for Industry, Science and Technology Canada (Mohans and Gislason, 1994).