More than one million university graduates will be needed to fill labour market needs over the next decade, with the highest demand coming from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, a report from the Council of Ontario Universities projects.
The report, released Thursday, forecasts that more than 200,000 workers will be needed from 2026 to 2035 in STEM fields that typically require or prefer a university degree. The area with the second-highest demand, with just under 150,000 workers needed, is health sciences.
The projected findings reinforce the need “to build our economy,” said Steve Orsini, president and CEO of the Council of Canadian Universities (COU).
“Tech is transforming our industries. We need to invest in talent [and] the research that goes into that talent to grow our economy and become more competitive in the future,” he said.
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The COU recruited Stokes Economics, a Milton-based economic consulting firm, to create the report. The company used a number of Statistics Canada datasets, such as the labour force survey and the 2021 census, to calculate its projections.
In order to project the labour market needs for university-trained jobs, Stokes used the Canadian government’s National Occupational Classification system, which categorizes jobs in the country’s labour market by particular requirements, such as education and training.
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The province has previously identified STEM fields as a priority in its post-secondary investment commitments.
For example, last month, the Ford government announced that it would top off its existing commitment to create 30,000 more post-secondary seats in “high demand” programs like health care and STEM by an additional 40,000 seats, to the tune of $1.7 billion.
The demand is already being felt by universities across Ontario.
Joe Stokes, the university registrar for Ontario Tech University who oversees admissions (no affiliation to Stoke Economics), said the projections aren’t surprising, and demand for STEM grads “might even be higher.”
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Even though the projected numbers are large, Stokes said he is confident the university can “rise to the occasion” and help fill labour needs, especially because the university has seen a “surge” in its majority-STEM programs over the last five years.
“We’re constantly looking at how we can adjust with market realities, and we’re putting on new programs and increasing seats to meet that demand,” he said, noting that the university is expected to launch new STEM-oriented programs in artificial intelligence and aerospace engineering next year.
Heather Sheardown, dean of the faculty of engineering at McMaster university, is seeing the same demand.
Sheardown said there were around 12,000 applicants to McMaster engineering programs in 2022. Last year, that number was closer to 15,000 or 16,000, she said.
“We really do want to respond to the needs of the province and the needs of the workforce,” said Sheardown.
McMaster has 1,200 seats in its engineering program at the moment, according to Sheardown, but is hoping to increase that number with the new funding commitments from the province, she said.
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Orsini said it’s important to keep increasing seats for in-demand programs so more students can enter them.
“We know students want to get an education, they want good careers and they’re applying to university programs. And some of the programs are in such high demand we’re seeing the admission criteria requiring higher grades,” he said.
“We need to create more spaces for those students to apply in the programs of their choice.”
Bianca Giacoboni, spokesperson for the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, said the province has made numerous “historic” investments into its colleges and universities to meet market demands.
“We will continue to support our publicly assisted post-secondary sector to ensure Ontario has the graduates we need to meet our province’s labour market demands,” she said in an emailed statement Thursday.
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