Part A: The AWAL Project

The HRSDC Essential Skills Research Project

In 1994, Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC: now Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, HRSDC) launched a national research study, the Essential Skills Research Project (ESRP), to examine how the essential skills were used in the Canadian workplace. More than 3,000 interviews have now been conducted across Canada with people working in some 200 occupations.

BACKGROUND

• Earlier work in Canada, the United States, Australia and Great Britain had identified a set of skills that were used in virtually all occupations. We call these “Essential Skills”.
• One such skill list was the Employability Skills Profile of the Conference Board of Canada. (This list also included information on attitudes and behaviours sought by employers.)
• Essential skills, such as reading, writing, numeracy, oral communication and problem solving, are also used throughout the activities of daily life: from shopping to food preparation, from recreational activities to community involvement.

WHY DO THE ESRP?

• Essential skills can take many forms, ranging from simple tasks, such as filling in credit card receipts, to more complex tasks, such as writing scientific reports.
• How can we describe these differences in a standardized way? What do these skills look like in different jobs? How does an individual know if they have the skills they need to do the jobs they want to do? The ESRP tried to provide answers to these questions.

THE ESRP

• The ESRP developed ways to talk about these skills, adapting scales from the International Adult Literacy Survey and the Canadian Language Benchmarks and drawing on other sources from the United States, Australia and Great Britain.
• The ESRP then conducted 3,000 interviews to provide information on what these skills looked like in a broad range of jobs.
• The ESRP focused on occupations requiring a secondary school diploma or less and on-the-job training. (These occupations were identified using the National Occupational Classification: NOC.)
• Additional data collection occurred, and continues, through the National Occupational Standards program and the Interprovincial Standards (Red Seal) program. This provides information about what these skills look like in occupations requiring higher levels of formal education.