Introduction

The sights, sounds and smells of a market. It's colourful, cacophonous and pungent - a stimulating environment for people all over the world. Hawkers call out their wares and their prices, thronging crowds surge through the aisles, buyers astutely compare to get the best quality or price for the purchase. Not the usual image that comes to mind when someone hears the words "labour market," although this market is every bit as alive and exciting as any other when a person knows how to navigate it.

The labour market is an arena where those who are in need of labour and those who can supply the labour come together. In a constant state of flux, the market responds to the ever-changing cries of employers for skilled workers and the flaunted demands of workers for positions to show their skills in exchange for some form of compensation. The products and services these sellers and buyers offer each other change as quickly as external influences make themselves known to the tenders of the market.

This book is about change - change that is evident in a vital labour market, in a kaleidoscope of workers, in ever-growing data banks, in emerging occupations, in diversifying education and training programs and in restructuring business organizations. These changes are having wide-ranging effects on the labour force. For example:

• There is a new way of doing business, running governments and organizing work that will diminish secure, long-term employment for many workers.
• Canada's high-paying, resource-based jobs are being replaced by service sector jobs that pay highly skilled workers well and lower-skilled workers poorly.
• In nearly all cases, new ways of doing business and innovations in technology demand workers with more education and training.
• The rate of technological change is so rapid that it is difficult for anyone to predict, with certainty, what work will remain and what new work will emerge.

While some of the above trends are cyclical - that is, related to recessions and/or weak economic growth - most economists believe deeper structural forces, such as innovations in technology and the globalization of trade, are also causing long-lasting shifts in the labour market. Without a doubt, the changes described in this book and the inevitable feeling of uncertainty they produce can be overwhelming. Canadians are at a turning point in which assumptions about living and working they may have come to rely on are being challenged.

Counsellors, teachers and others who provide career services are not exempt from the realities of the new economy. Take the need for higher skill levels as one example. In addition to more traditional career counselling activities, practitioners are now expected to use and understand labour market information (LMI) in the career planning process.

Consider also that, as a resource for LMI, career practitioners have now joined the ranks of "messengers," often delivering information that challenges the world of work people find comfortable. This may result in practitioners experiencing some misdirected anger and resentment from their clients.

As the new millennium unfolds, the world of work scarcely resembles the industrialized world of the 1950s and 1960s, yet as William Bridges (1994, p. 51) points out, "many of our thought patterns, values and attitudes were conceived during that period." Workers expected to continue to perform the specific function they were hired to do until they were promoted. They expected to move automatically to the next position up the ladder; expected the employer to provide training when needed and to promote according to seniority. If employees were loyal and did their work consistently, they could expect to work in the company until retirement.

Practitioners need to acknowledge the stability the old economy brought to people's lives and to appreciate the level of adjustment in expectations and behaviour now required as these values and attitudes are challenged by a lack of job security, fewer promotions, rapidly changing work descriptions and layoffs coupled with hopscotch, short-term employment at several companies with no job benefits.

And of course, before practitioners can deal with the healthy reactions of denial, fear and anger from some of their clients, they must first deal with their own reactions to change and uncertainty. The changes in the labour market may leave practitioners feeling uncertain of their role and bogged down by the thought of having to know it all. Counsellors may not be able to be the ultimate "information specialists" but they can be "information processing specialists."

Just as clients are faced with such trends as "multi-skilling," counsellors must deal with the need to expand their own skill sets to include finding, evaluating and interpreting labour market information, and coaching clients to integrate these skills into their lifetime career management. Of major importance in the new career management is a self-marketing strategy. For this reason, practitioners need to also become a marketing coach. Practitioners in the private sector have focussed on this and are also becoming talent agents who facilitate networking and employment connections. More information on coaching can be found on the International Coaching Federation website, <www.icf.com> and at <www.coachu.com>. The coaching role continues to expand into different areas, such as executive coaching, career/lifestyle coaching, retirement coaching, etc. It involves a change on the part of career practitioners to provide a more holistic, life-planning approach in career development. The goal is to identify a way of life that balances family, leisure and work.

Practitioners need to help clients build buffers and nets to keep multiple job changes from being destructive. Because of the changing nature of work, unemployment and underemployment is increasing. Career management practitioners need to advise clients and students in such areas as:

• self-reliance (e.g., pointing out the importance of financial planning, planning for lifelong learning and skill upgrading); and
• managing expectations (e.g., understanding that job security now means being marketable and responsibility for managing one's career lies with the employee).

In this book career practitioners, in public and private sectors, in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, in employment agencies, career centres, out-placement services, human resource departments and educational institutions, will find an introduction to the knowledge and skills needed to equip clients and students with operational methods for navigating in this rapidly changing world. The content is aimed at discovering particular sources of labour market information, and sorting and analyzing the information for effective use in answering client and student questions. For instance:

• Chapter 2 looks at some major factors influencing the Canadian labour market. Its purpose is to sensitize those providing career services to the kinds of issues that have an impact on occupational growth and decline. The trends covered are the ones practitioners, clients and students should follow in their daily reading of the business section of the newspaper.
• With workers now changing job areas many times during their working life, it is necessary to be more knowledgeable about career paths, including inter- and intra-occupational mobility. This is covered in Chapter 3.
• It is very difficult to predict, with absolute certainty, what jobs will remain and what new jobs will emerge. For this reason, one of the most useful things practitioners can do to help prepare clients and students for the future is to advise them on the skills and attitudes needed to operate successfully, no matter what jobs remain and what new work emerges. Chapter 4 is devoted to this subject.
• There are many sources of labour market information, and interpreting this information to make career decisions is a daunting task. Chapter 5 looks at some helpful sources of and tips for using labour market information.
• Keeping up with technological change requires a lifetime of learning. Clients need to be aware of different types of learning and how to build on what they know. Chapter 6 discusses education and training trends and options.
• The major themes throughout the book are summarized in Chapter 7.

Each chapter - if not each subheading - could be a book in itself, so it is emphasized that this book serves only as an introduction. The hope is that those providing career services, who have not had an orientation to labour market information, will begin to incorporate an expanded approach to their career counselling and pass on the how's and why's to clients and students.