Improve coordination on labour market research and analysis, building on existing initiatives and avoiding duplication.
Forum participants identified labour market research and analysis as imperative to the sector’s success.
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) supports Tourism HR Canada’s labour market research initiatives, recognizing them as one of Canada’s “foundational labour market forecasting systems”.
This funding enables Tourism HR Canada to serve its stakeholders (such as businesses, academia, governments, and industry associations) by providing timely and tailored labour market information, including:
- demographic stats
- salary trends
- supply/demand projections
- provincial/territorial labour data
The funding also provides resources to help conduct regional labour market studies and other forms of labour market consultation, and specialized analysis.
Tourism HR Canada’s Strategic Plan highlights labour market intelligence (LMI) as the first ‘Performance Pillar’. The organization strives to be the “the most reliable source of labour market information, data and analysis for the well-informed tourism professional”.
The plan goes on to assert: “Tourism HR Canada plays an integral role in the collection, contextualization, and dissemination of accurate and timely labour market intelligence. Businesses and institutions can use the national and regional data and analyses to make informed, strategic decisions about the supply and demand of labour, training trends, compensation rates and practices, and demographic characteristics of the labour pool.”
The demand for regional and tailored labour market research is growing. In the last year alone, Tourism HR Canada has worked with industry groups and governments on focused research in Yukon, Newfoundland and Labrador, Banff, Cape Breton, and New Brunswick. National associations and others have asked for specialized data. Groundbreaking studies lead by industry associations such as go2HR in British Columbia and research conducted by the Conference Board and other interest groups illustrate the demand for increasingly more tailored information, and the need for further types of data.
A key outcome of the Forum was a call for increased coordination of LMI, reducing the duplication of efforts and leveraging of resources, where possible.
Tourism HR Canada committed to further facilitating, coordinating, and enabling tourism labour market research, including:
- collecting methodologies
- serving as a repository for current studies
- assisting groups with survey or research design
- helping disseminate information