Figure 4.3 shows the regional variation in employment rates by document literacy level. As at the national level, employment rates increase as literacy levels increase in all the regions. Again, there are regional differences apparent. In the Territories and British Columbia, for example, there is a large difference in employment rates by literacy level. Over 90 percent of those at Level 4/5 are employed in the Territories compared to 50 percent of those at Level 1 and in British Columbia the rates are 81 percent and 47 percent respectively. The difference in employment rates between those at Level 1 and Level 4/5 is smaller in Ontario and the Prairies.
While literacy proficiency is one contributing factor to finding employment, there are many others, and these factors are likely to interact. For example, in a tight labour market, those with low literacy proficiency may face more challenges in finding and retaining jobs than those with high levels of proficiency. Similarly, the types of skills in demand in various labour markets and by various occupations are likely to be a factor in finding employment.
Knowledge intensive occupations increasingly demand the application of higher levels of competencies. Further, the interaction of technology and production is such that the nature of these jobs is continually changing. Proficiency in the four domains, prose and document literacy, numeracy and problem solving, is important for the acquisition and application of new knowledge and skills.
Text box A4
Measuring knowledge-based occupations
Recent efforts to reclassify the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) into fewer occupational groups (e.g., Osberg, Wolff and Baumol, 1989; Lavoie and Roy, 1998; Boothby, 1999) categorize types of occupations on the basis of knowledge content and common skills including cognitive, communication, management and motor skills. Evidence suggests that occupations tend to cluster according to relatively few mixes of skill requirements and few occupational types (Béjaoui, 2000). Note that IALSS measures only some components of cognitive skills.
In this section, all ISCO occupations are classified into six large groups: knowledge expert, management, information high-skill, information low-skill, services low-skill, and goods-related occupations.
Knowledge expert types of occupations require the most use of cognitive skills, more than average management and communication skills as well as fine motor skills. Although managers are required to use cognitive skills slightly less intensively than experts, they are required to use management and communication skills most often, making their required skills set the most balanced. Similar to experts, high and low-skill information occupations require the use of cognitive, management and communication skills more than the average, with higher use by the former. Low-skill services and goods-related occupations require the use of these types of skills comparatively less often. See Boothby (1999) and Béjaoui (2000) for a more detailed description.
This section presents the average scores in the four domains for six groups of occupations: knowledge expert, management, information high-skill, information low-skill, services low-skill, and goods-related (See Text Box A4 and also Annex A, Table 4.15).