Using the Labour Market Information you Find
Whether you are just starting out in your career and looking to break into the job market or have many years of experience under your belt but are moving to a new country or new city; sifting through all the labour market information available can be overwhelming. You may also have so many options that you can’t make a decision! So often it’s difficult to know what to actually do with the information you find. How will it help you make an informed decision about your next move?
We’ll do a dive into exactly that in this blog post, helping you know what to do with all the information you are hearing and ensuring you are making the decisions that work best for you.
Watching the Industry Trends
You’ll often see news reports stating that companies are starting long-term projects or that a new policy is going to positively/adversely affect a given industry, or hear people talk about skills shortages in certain areas – but what does this mean for you?
Taking in this information and looking at the sectors it impacts can help you decide if you want to chart a certain course. For example, government policy (incentives, taxes, rules and regulations, infrastructure etc.) around filmmaking can determine if films and advertisements will be made in one province over another. If you have skills in that area, keeping an eye on the policies, and what people are saying about them will help you decide whether to use those skills in that industry, or transfer to another. A great tool for transferability of skills can be found at OpportuNext.
Another way to use industry trends to help your decisions is to examine opportunities across sectors. If you are an accountant but are interested in agriculture – you might want to look at both sectors, fields, and companies that operate in both spaces. This information will give you other options that you might not have considered if you had only looked in one sector. Don’t confine yourself to one space, when your interests can take you other places!
Wages
Look at the median wages, as well as the 10th and 90th percentile wages, to understand what you might earn as a new hire, mid-career, later career, and what your salary ceiling could be. Remember, wages are not the only story. If you will earn less in a given sector, but it allows you to stay in a place you love or receive interesting or necessary training these are important factors to consider. Your reasons are personal but labour market information will give you outside perspective and help you make the informed decisions that make the most sense, and feel the most right, for you.
Career Path
Careers, like people, evolve and grow over time. Thinking about what is next for you and your goals will help you use labour market information to your benefit.
Using the OpportuNext tool can help you decide where to go next with your skillset, but you can also use tools like LinkedIns Future of Skills tool, which showcases how skills have changed in a given role and industry, giving you good insight on what to work on in your own professional development journey. Keeping an eye on the training and upskilling opportunities plus new requirements in different industries, sectors, and companies will also help you stay current. This also gives you an opportunity to align your skills with roles across multiple sectors. For example, for those who work in administration or digital sectors, keeping up to date with the latest digital platforms and collaboration tools is very important. This shows that you are knowledgeable and proficient as well as open-minded and open to learning new and emerging software and applications used in office environments.
Even if you have landed your dream job and you are happy where you are, it is still important to stay up-to-date and understand how your employer compares to best practice and their competitors.
Conclusion
Learning, listening, and consuming labour market information can be used to your advantage and this can help you in your career – whether it’s to land your first job, grow your skills or to break into a new sector in a new country. Take the time to really consider what labour market information is important to you, which sources you trust, and how you will use these insights to benefit your career in the short and long term. Be sure to check your sources to prevent misinformation and think carefully about your own goals, skills, and education so you can best act on the opportunities you create for yourself or that others help you discover!
