Co-operative Education & Career Services: Labour Market Information

Any piece of information that tells you about the workplace - its present state, and / or how it’s going to change in the future - is labour market information.

Examples:

• When you hear about a new store in the mall opening up,
• Or a government office downtown that’s about to downsize,
• If you hear reports on the news about minimum wages going up,
• Or how many people became unemployed last month

All of these bits of information are considered Labour Market Information!

National LMI: If you’re thinking about work that may take you across the country, and you’re wondering how work opportunities measure up in different regions of Canada, you would do well to look at a couple of the following resources and analyze data that deals with our nation as a whole.

• Statistics Canada
• Innovation Science & Economic Development Canada

Provincial LMI: You may want to know how BC is doing as a whole, and you may also want to know how different regions of the province are faring in comparison to each other. In either case, the following are excellent sources of provincial LMI.

• WorkBC. Look in particular under the “Labour Market and Industry” section, and you’ll see subsections that detail labour market trends, future projections, and wage and salary information.
• BC Stats - Employment & Labour Market

Local LMI: Wouldn’t it be great if every city in Canada had its own LMI publication that told us how your town was faring in the labour scene? Unfortunately, few such publications exist, whether in print or online. Check with the Employment Facilitators at Camosun for this information.