According to the report, Canadian adults use career guidance services at only half the rate (19%) of adults in other OECD countries (39%). How is it that the most educated workforce in the world can be so far behind in career ownership and navigation skills—especially in an era when jobs are changing all the time?
The truth is that Canada has a “fail-first” approach to supporting lifelong career development.
Only when someone’s career is interrupted (by an injury, layoff, plant closure, etc.) are they informed of the career services available to them. For the employed, even in sectors that will undergo significant disruption in the coming years, the availability of career services is patchy at best and, much of the time, awareness of existing services is slim to none.
In other countries, employed adults use career services just as often as the unemployed. To many Canadians, this will be unheard of.
In Canada, career guidance is seen as a source of support only for kids, and sometimes for adults who have lost their way.
Yet Canadian adults who are older, have lower educations, or live in rural areas—in other words, those facing job automation and skills obsolescence the most—are less likely to use career services than other groups. What’s more, Canadians who feel negatively about their work prospects don’t seek out career guidance as often as those who feel more positively.
There’s a critical disconnect here. Government-funded employment services tend to target unemployed adults, but those most at risk of unemployment are not using them as much as they could.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story @ It’s time for a national strategy on adult career guidance in Canada | Challenge Factory
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