Yesterday’s Gone: Exploring the future of Canada’s labour market in a post-COVID world

Executive Summary

We’re living in uncertain and strange times, making it especially challenging to plan for the next year, never mind the next decade. And yet it is critical in our current economic climate that we understand the breadth of potential changes ahead, to better prepare workers for the future of Canada’s labour market. Yesterday’s Gone outlines 8 megatrends and 34 related meso trends that have the potential to impact employment in Canada by 2030. The goal of this research is to explore these technological, social, economic, environmental, and political changes, including those influenced by COVID-19, to inform the design of skill demand programs and policy responses.

This research builds off work released in March 2019 as part of the Employment in 2030 initiative, Turn and Face the Strange, which identified 31 broad trends impacting the future of employment. This report revisits many of these 31 trends, and explores how each has continued, or shifted in direction. Some of the original 31 trends have lessened in relative importance over the last two years and therefore have not been reprised.

This report is not meant to be a comprehensive overview, a prediction of the future, or a deep analysis of any one trend. It is meant to spark exploratory thinking and consideration of the potential for different trends to interact in ways that are not always obvious. Furthermore, it is important to consider how these trends may impact populations and demographic groups differently, as their impacts may be unequal.