Skills for the Northwest Territories
Updated Labour Market Forecast and Needs Assessment
Skills for Success
In 2016, the Government of the Northwest Territories launched Skills 4 Success, an initiative to develop education and training programs that more effectively respond to employer, community, and industry needs.
Skills 4 Success has never been more relevant. As the territory confronts COVID-19, it also faces deeper challenges to renew and diversify its economy.
Navigating unprecedented economic turbulence and changing sectors such as mining will not be easy.
In the near-term, territorial stakeholders must focus on economic recovery and resilience. But getting beyond the status quo will require a longer-term skills transformation.
Looking out from 2022, the Northwest Territories’ economic prospects will hinge on sector change, recovery, and renewal.
In support of Skills 4 Success, Signal49 Research has updated its 2016 Labour Market Forecast and Needs Assessment (LMFNA) with five new years of data and revised assumptions about the future of the economy, presented in three possible scenarios.
Two main objectives guided the LMFNA and continue to guide our present update:
- To better understand the characteristics of the N.W.T.’s labour market and resident labour force; and
- anticipate future hiring needs
Labour Market Information
Overview of the Six Modules
Module 1: Present Economic Outlook
Module 1 of the LMI Resource presents an overview of the key economic themes that have dominated the territory’s labour market over the past five years.
Download Module 1 here
Module 2: Labour Market Overview
Module 2 examines the key characteristics of the current labour force, including its demographic profile, occupational structure, skill levels, and migration patterns.
Download Module 2 here
Module 3: Public Sector and Interjurisdictional Workers
Module 3 looks at two unique and important contributors to employment: public administration and interjurisdictional employees. Public administration is the largest source of employment in the territory. Interjurisdictional employees, which include workers who reside outside the territory as well as territorial residents who work outside the territory, makes up around 20 per cent of the total N.W.T. workforce.
Download Module 3 here
Module 4: State of Education
Module 4 closes our review of contemporary issues by examining the current state of education attainment among the territory’s resident population, with a special focus on its recent graduates, children, and youth.
Download Module 4 here
Module 5: The Territorial Forecasting Model
Module 5 outlines Signal49 Research’s territorial forecasting model and presents key findings from Signal49 Research’s updated territorial outlook through to 2040.
Download Module 5 here
Module 6: Occupational Demand Scenarios
Module 6 presents our occupational demand scenarios based on the forecasting assumptions and economic outlooks reviewed in Module 5.
Download Module 6 here
Skills Outlook for the Northwest Territories
Our skills outlooks include a base case, low, and high scenario for 2021 to 2040.
The base case scenario is our forecast of the N.W.T.’s economy using assumptions that we believe are most likely to occur. Compared with the base case in our 2016 Labour Market Information Resource, our update presents a more negative economic outlook.
The low scenario assumes delays to infrastructure spending and that world commodity prices will be lower than expected—which would weigh on mining investment and cause lower output.
The high scenario is more optimistic than the base case. It assumes that a strong recovery from the pandemic will lead to additional infrastructure investments and that commodity prices will be higher than in the other scenarios—which would increase mining investment and output.
High School Is Increasingly Important
Across the three scenarios, more than half of future job openings in the Northwest Territories typically require post-secondary education. This will be a challenge for the territory because high school graduation rates for residents are considerably lower than the Canadian average.
Over 2009–18, the territory had a high school graduation rate of 50 per cent. The rate was lowest among Indigenous people living in small communities (35 per cent), but both rates are much lower than the Canadian average of 81 per cent.
Explore the Outlook
The following Chart and Table present our base case forecast of the future workforce from 2022 to 2040. Explore the forecast of employment and job openings by five different skill levels:
Management
These jobs are characterized by a high level of responsibility, accountability, and subject matter expertise. Expertise can be acquired either through formal education or extensive subject matter expertise. Examples include restaurant managers, government managers, and mine managers.
University
These jobs require a university degree (i.e., a bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate). Examples include professions such as doctors, dentists, and architects.
College or Apprenticeship
These technical jobs and skilled trades usually require a college diploma and/or training as an apprentice. Examples include chefs, plumbers, and electricians.
Secondary School
These jobs usually require secondary school and/or occupation-specific training (up to two years). Examples include long-haul truck drivers and food and beverage servers.
On-the-job Training
These jobs usually revolve around on-the-job training. Examples include cleaning staff and oil field workers.
(Please see Modules 2, 5, and 6 for more in-depth insights).
Key Themes Shaping Labour Market Demand
Most territorial employers are looking for skilled labour
The Northwest Territories will need a variety of skills in the future. Our base case scenario expects over 12,500 job openings will need to be filled in the resident workforce from 2022 to 2040. Over 7,000 of those will require post-secondary education.
Replacement demand drives the territorial labour market
By far the dominant driver of labour market demand in the territory will be replacing workers who have left the territorial workforce.
That pattern is unlikely to change—unless substantial efforts are made to diversify the economy and create new kinds of growth. (See our economic and occupational forecasts in modules 5 and 6).
New initiatives that help diversify the territory’s economy, such as the GNWT’s efforts to spark a territorial knowledge economy, will be key to helping the labour market grow. New efforts to revitalize the territory’s mining sector and low carbon economy will also have important roles to play.
Gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous workers need to be addressed
Gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous individuals continue to set in at an early age. The latest data from Early Development Instrument testing in primary school indicate that 60 per cent of children in N.W.T.’s small communities were vulnerable in 2017. (See Module 4 for details.)
Altogether, these small communities had a 90 per cent Indigenous majority population. In contrast, Indigenous people made up less than 25 per cent of Yellowknife where 28 per cent of children were considered vulnerable.
The gaps then widen, both in terms of education attainment and occupational skill levels. Being less qualified means that local labour, whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous, is at a disadvantage when competing with interjurisdictional and migrant workers for jobs.
While the interjurisdictional workforce profiled in Module 3 will continue to play an important labour market role, there is also a high proportion of Indigenous youth and young adults in the territory who are not in the labour force. Many come from rural and remote areas where education and employment opportunities may be limited. Initiatives to nurture their skills, job readiness, and career aspirations will continue to be key for ensuring a resilient and adaptive resident labour force in the coming years.