Researching the Demand for Trades

First, we decided that the two trades selected had to have reasonably good prospects for employment once the candidates had completed apprenticeship training. We recognised that this would be a long-term goal for many LBS learners, and that working towards this goal would involve a substantial investment of time and energy on the learner’s part. For this reason, we wanted to select trades that would give apprenticeship candidates a reasonable chance of employment, once they had achieved certification.

We used two different documents for this purpose: the HRDC Ontario Job Futures 2000 report and the Waterloo-Wellington Training and Adjustment Board’s (WWTAB) Environmental Scan for 2001/02. Ontario Job Futures is a publication that provides information on the current trends and future outlook for 157 occupations that are common to Ontario. The publication is a joint effort between the Province of Ontario and the Government of Ontario.

The WWTAB Environmental Scan is a report that provides updated and concise information related to the labour market, training, and adjustment environment in the Waterloo/Wellington region. The scan analyses the demand for, and supply of, labour in the training board area.

Both of these documents provide information about which occupations have the best prospects for employment; over a five-year period in the case of Ontario Job Futures, and over the next year, in the case of the Environmental Scan. We also felt that by examining Ontario Job Futures 2000, we would have a province-wide view of job prospects, which would mean that the assessment tools we developed would have a broader range of applicability and allow mobility for learners in Waterloo/Wellington.

We narrowed down the possibilities by focussing first on those occupations that Ontario Job Futures 2000 listed as having Strong or Good job prospects to 2005.