How Are Skills and Jobs Evolving?
Addressing the Need for a Dynamic Approach to Skills
Français • June 3, 2026
Current labour market tools miss how skills are evolving
Canada’s labour market is evolving rapidly, transforming both which jobs are in demand and the skills required to perform them. Yet most approaches to forecasting labour markets either assume that skill requirements within occupations remain constant over time or rely on broadly defined skills that are too general to inform education policy or training decisions.
However, skill requirements often evolve, even when job titles remain the same. Technological change, digital tools, and new workplace practices continuously reshape the tasks workers perform, as well as the capabilities employers seek.
Without accounting for these changes, training investments risk missing emerging needs, workers may develop outdated skills, and policy-makers may lack the evidence required to design effective workforce strategies.
A new approach to measuring skills in a changing economy
Signal49 Research, in collaboration with the Future Skills Centre, is addressing this gap by forecasting the demand for specific skills within occupations and integrating these changing job-specific requirements into employment forecasts.
We can provide this level of job-specific skills forecasting by integrating our High-Frequency Labour Market Insights data, which captures demand signals from online job postings, with our proprietary Model of Occupations, Skills, and Technology (MOST), a forward-looking labour market forecasting model. By linking real-time evidence on evolving skill requirements with long-term employment projections, we produce dynamic, granular, and scalable insights into how demand for skills is changing across Canada’s economy.
In this project, we will do the following:
- Link real-time job posting skills to MOST employment projections by occupations over a 20-year period.
- Forecast how demand for specific skills evolves within and across occupations.
- Identify how skills evolve within occupations and translate those findings into actionable insights for education and training policy planning.
Identifying emerging skills early
Through this initiative, we will also be able to detect emerging skills as they appear and spread across occupations and industries.
Emerging skills may include capabilities that:
- were previously rare but are becoming more common
- are growing rapidly in demand
- are spreading across different sectors and occupations
By identifying these emerging skills, we can provide timely insights that can guide training programs, workforce planning, and policy development.
Connect with us
If you are interested in learning more about this study, please contact Ibrahim Abuallail, PhD, Senior Economist, Economics Research ([email protected]).
FSC partners
The responsibility for the findings and conclusions of this research rests entirely with Signal49 Research.