A university degree is still your best path to prosperity

This letter was published in the Vancouver Sun on December 1, 2012.

by Christine Tausig Ford
Vice-president, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada

Re: The employability gap, Column, Nov. 28

Dan Ovsey’s column misleads readers on how universities prepare their students for jobs in today’s marketplace. In addition to developing global citizens, universities are producing the adaptable graduates Canada’s labour market needs.

From 1990 to 2011, the number of jobs filled by university graduates in Canada more than doubled to 4.5 million from 1.9 million, while the growth in jobs in the skilled trades grew by only a third.

Professional and management jobs grew by 1.7 million during this time, with 1.4 million positions filled by university graduates. Most of the job growth for those with degrees is in high-skill occupations.

There is no evidence of a growing proportion of under-employed university graduates in the workplace, as this article suggests. The vast majority of the underemployed young people Ovsey refers to from Stats Canada data have not completed university; many have no post-secondary education at all.

The author points to a need for more university and employer partnerships to prepare young people for the workforce. In fact, more than 50 per cent of today’s undergraduates have a co-op or internship experience in the workforce as part of their studies.

He also argues that, while university enrolments grow, thousands of skilled trades and other technical jobs go unfilled in provinces where the economy is booming.

However, since 2000 job growth for university graduates has well outpaced that for other levels of education.

Even in booming Alberta, jobs filled by university graduates over the past decade exceed those filled by people with trade certificates by a factor of four to one.

A university degree remains the surest path to prosperity, and university graduates remain crucial to Canada’s economic well-being.