The IT Nerd

As most of Canada continues its reopening from coronavirus-related closures, more employers are making plans to bring remote employees back to the office or physical workplace. But are employers and their employees on the same page?

In the latest edition of the Workforce Confidence Index, LinkedIn looked at what employers are planning and sharing for reopening, and what the workforce has to say about it. LinkedIn also asked Canadian professionals across different industries whether they thought their companies would be better or worse off in six months.

• Nearly a third of employees still in the dark on office return – 10% have been told that they won’t be returning to the physical workplace within that period, while a further 33% of employees said they’ve been left in the dark
• The biggest draws of the physical workplace were opportunities to collaborate on work in person (66%) and the chance to socialize with others in person (65%).
• Workers in finance remained the most optimistic about the future for their employers over this period, education, health care and public administration workers were the least confident that the situation for their employers would improve.

For the full results, including generational and gender-based viewpoints, read the report here. Research methodology is as follows:

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to members via email every two weeks.

Roughly 10,000+ members respond each wave, based in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, India and Australia. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate.

Students, stay-at-home partners & retirees are excluded from analysis so we’re able to get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. 

Individual confidence index scores are calculated by assigning each respondent a score (-100, -50, 0, 50, 100) based on how much they agree or disagree with each of three statements, and then finding the composite average score across all statements.

After a year of working remotely, more Canadians are moving to Vancouver and Halifax for jobs in popular industries and a change in post-pandemic lifestyle, according to LinkedIn’s first-ever Workforce Report for Canada. 

The report measured internal migration trends of major Canadian cities and the growth or decline of hiring in different industries.

• The National Hiring Rate in Canada last month was up 124% from where it sat in May 2020 at the height of the pandemic
• Health care, software, and real estate industries were among the biggest gainers, with hiring in the health care space rising 123% from May 2020, and hiring in the entertainment, energy and mining, and recreation and travel industries trending down.
• The inflow-outflow ratio of residents in Vancouver has seen a 10.5% rise since April 2020, with Halifax seeing a 39% growth surge over the same period.

The full report findings can be found here.

Methodology

An internal migration instance is defined as a member changing their location within the same country on their LinkedIn profile. The index of internal migration is calculated as the share of LinkedIn members who moved within the country divided by its average for 2019. For each city, we also calculate the inflow-outflow ratio (number of inflows to a city for every outflow). Cities are then ranked by the change in their inflow-outflow ratio between April 2019 and March 2020 (before Covid) and between April 2020 and May 2021 (after Covid). 

The hiring rate is the percentage of LinkedIn members who added a new employer to their profile in the same month the new job began, divided by the total number of LinkedIn members in Canada. This number is indexed to the average month in 2016; for instance, an index of 1.05 indicates a hiring rate that is 5% higher than the average month in 2016.

After a year of unprecedented conditions, a number of Canada’s Top Companies are shaking up how they structure their worksites and workdays, with many planning to offer more flexible and hybrid remote/in-person roles even after the pandemic is over.

So, are they giving people what they want? In the latest edition of the Workforce Confidence Index, LinkedIn looked at what Canadians say they value most in a new job – and how that varies across industries.

• Nearly half of respondents from Canada’s workforce said that having flexibility over their working hours and location and finding work/life balance had become more important value propositions in a new job after the pandemic than beforehand.
• 40% of respondents say benefits – such as health care and paid time off – were also more important than they were pre-pandemic, while just over a third said the same was true of salary and workplace culture.
• Roughly a quarter of respondents overall said a company’s visible commitment to diversity and inclusion was more important to them than it was before the pandemic, while 35% had a heightened focus on building transferable skills.

For the full results, visit here.

Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to Canada-based members via email every two weeks. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners & retirees are excluded from analysis so we’re able to get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy.

Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for. 1725 workers in Canada were surveyed from March 13-April 9 for the research on what the workforce values in a new role.

The LinkedIn Omnibus Research on how jobs have changed is from March 2021, with n>50.

LinkedIn has released the Canadian edition of the 2021 Top Companies list, featuring the best workplaces for Canadians.

As the pandemic continues, the 2021 list reflects the current state of the economy which has many Canadians looking for new job opportunities. LinkedIn identifies the best workplaces to grow their career and shares the insights they need to navigate their professional journey.

LinkedIn uses its data to rank companies on the list based on seven pillars that have been shown to lead to career progression: ability to advance; skills growth; company stability; external opportunity; company affinity; gender diversity and educational background.

Here is what the highest ranked LinkedIn Top Companies are doing to attract and keep talent:

1. RBC – During the pandemic, RBC says it continued to pay eligible employees unable to work due to COVID-19 and offered special compensation for those working onsite. The bank also said it was the first in Canada to commit to no job losses from COVID in 2020.

2. TD – TD Bank, which also committed to no job losses in 2020 as a result of COVID, trained HR professionals to help redeploy employees from one business to another as the company adapted to changing needs.

3. Scotiabank – The company says it is considering a wider range of applicants for some roles, focusing on assessments of skillsets over specific job requirements or backgrounds.

4. Alphabet – Google has announced plans to open new offices in Toronto, Waterloo, and Montreal, accommodating up to 5,000 employees by 2022.

5. Bell – The company operating some of Canada’s biggest media brands, recently set new targets for BIPOC representation in senior management of at least 25% by 2025, as well as student and graduate hiring of at least 40%.

The full 2021 Top Companies list is linked here.

Methodology:

• LinkedIn uses its data to rank companies based on seven pillars that have been shown to lead to career progression: ability to advance; skills growth; company stability; external opportunity; company affinity; gender diversity and educational background. Ability to advance tracks employee promotions within a company and when they move to a new company, based on standardized job titles. Skills growth looks at how employees across the company are gaining skills while employed at the company, using standardized LinkedIn skills. Company stability tracks attrition over the past year, as well as the percentage of employees that stay at the company at least three years. External opportunity looks at Recruiter outreach across employees at the company. Company affinity, which seeks to measure how supportive a company’s culture is, looks at connection volume on LinkedIn among employees, controlled for company size. Gender diversity measures gender parity within a company and its subsidiaries. Finally, educational background examines the variety of educational attainment among employees, from no degree up to Ph.D. levels, reflecting a commitment to recruiting a wide range of professionals.
• To be eligible, companies must have at least 500 employees as of Dec. 31 in the country/region and employee attrition can be no higher than 10% over the 12 months prior (based on LinkedIn data). Only parent companies rank on the list; majority-owned subsidiaries and data about those subsidiaries are incorporated into the parent company score. All data counts are normalized based on company size across the pool of companies eligible for the list. The methodology and insights time frame is Jan. 1, 2020 through Dec. 31, 2020. All of the data used is aggregated and/or de-identified.
• They exclude all staffing and recruiting firms, educational institutions and government agencies. They also exclude LinkedIn, its parent company Microsoft and Microsoft subsidiaries.

Data from 500 million LinkedIn users has been scraped and is for sale online, according to a report from Cyber News. A LinkedIn spokesperson confirmed to Insider that there is a dataset of public information that was scraped from the platform. 

“While we’re still investigating this issue, the posted dataset appears to include publicly viewable information that was scraped from LinkedIn combined with data aggregated from other websites or companies,” a LinkedIn spokesperson told Insider in a statement. “Scraping our members’ data from LinkedIn violates our terms of service and we are constantly working to protect our members and their data.” LinkedIn has 740 million users, according to its website, so the reported data scraping of 500 million users means about two-thirds of the platform’s user base could be affected. The data includes account IDs, full names, email addresses, phone numbers, workplace information, genders, and links to other social media accounts.

This is bad. As bad as Facebook’s recent issues. And I prescribe a similar solution for this. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft and Microsoft has a market cap of over $1.83 trillion. So I suggest a fine of $80 per account. For the roughly half billion accounts exposed, that would come to $40 billion. That would really get their attention and you would bet your last dollar that LinkedIn would never, ever be this negligent again.

To mark International Women’s Day, this month’s edition of the Workforce Confidence Index breaks down the challenges and strategies that Canadians face in the job hunt, and how they differ between men and women. LinkedIn then looked at aggregate confidence scores by gender based on perceived job security, personal finances, and career outlook.

LinkedIn’s latest research looks at gender differences in job seeking:

• LinkedIn found that women were far more likely to consider education as a job-seeking strategy than men. Some 40% of women said they would be willing to go back to school part-time or take online classes to gain knowledge and skills, compared with just 26% of men. Meanwhile, 13% of women said they would consider going back to school full-time, compared with 8% of men.
• Women were also marginally more willing to pivot into working in a different industry (53% versus 50%) or work in a different job function (49% versus 46%).
• While men and women were equally willing to start their own business, men were much more willing to consider working as freelancers or contractors than women.
• Men were also a bit more open to taking a step back in their careers, with men slightly more likely to say they would accept a sizeable reduction in income (10% of men versus 7% of women) and more likely to accept a sizeable reduction in seniority or job title (19% versus 13%).
• Overall, women in Canada have consistently reported lower Workforce Confidence Index scores than men since LinkedIn began collecting data early in the pandemic, although that gap has narrowed significantly since the summer.

For the full results, including additional insights on what’s keeping Canadians from finding new jobs, visit here.

Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 1,000+ Canada-based members respond each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners & retirees are excluded from analysis so we’re able to get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy.

Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for.

*Gender is based on self-reported data from survey respondents. Respondents could also identify outside Male or Female, or could select “prefer not to answer.”

In previous editions of the Workforce Confidence Index, LinkedIn examined what Canadian jobseekers are willing to do to land their next roles in this tough labour market. But what effect is the pandemic having on Canadians who are currently employed?

LinkedIn’s latest research looks at what’s motivating Canadian workers to stay in their current roles right now – and how that may differ across generations:

• As Canada’s official unemployment rate in January rose to its highest since August, the latest Workforce Confidence Index survey found roughly two thirds (68%) of employed Canadians are “sheltering” in their current jobs in some form – that’s to say prioritizing a steady pay cheque over career growth or work they find inherently rewarding.
• More than half (53%) cited a steady paycheck as a top motivator for staying in their current position, while roughly a quarter pointed to their organization’s perks and benefits as a key motivator (a figure that jumped to 37% among members of Gen Z).
• About 15% of respondents said they were largely keeping their roles to wait out the pandemic for a more favourable job market, although that figure climbed to 28% among millennials, and was as low as 9% among baby boomers.

For the full results, including additional insights on three downtrodden Canadian industries that have seen a jump in optimism over the last few months, visit here. 

Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 1,000+ Canada-based members respond each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners & retirees are excluded from analysis so we’re able to get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy.

Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for.

Canada’s workforce is feeling the most confident since July – but that optimism isn’t shared equally across the country, with those in Montreal and Vancouver reporting a much brighter picture than others, according to new LinkedIn data.

LinkedIn’s overall Workforce Confidence Index score for Canada reached +33 at the end of last year, on a scale of -100 to +100. The figures reflect an aggregate of how Canadians feel about their short-term job security, financial wellbeing and one-year career outlook, based on a regular survey of members. (You can find previous editions here.)

How optimistic does the workforce feel across Canada?

• Driving the improvement in sentiment in the most recent quarter, workers in Greater Montreal reported the highest confidence scores of all the Canadian cities we tracked, averaging +46 in the period covering October to December. That reflects a climb from average scores of +40 over the summer and +31 back in the spring. While it’s hard to pinpoint what prompted the improvement in sentiment in and around Montreal, their scores moved higher primarily in the financial and career confidence metrics. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in Quebec fell to 6.7% in December, the lowest among provinces, according to Statistics Canada, as employment picked up in professional, scientific and technical services.
• Workers in Metro Vancouver were the next most optimistic, and saw the biggest quarterly jump in optimism in the winter, with scores of +39, up from +30 in the summer. The three-month moving average unemployment rate in Vancouver was most recently a (comparatively) low 7.4%, official figures suggest, perhaps underscoring the relatively upbeat mood.
• Those in Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg and their surrounding areas all fell somewhere in the middle of the pack, with scores of +32, +30 and +27 respectively, all inching down two points from the summer. Wider employment in the Toronto metropolitan area was unchanged in November and fell 1.5% in December after five months of gains as tougher public health restrictions were enacted to combat the spread of COVID-19, according to Statistics Canada.

For the full results, including additional insights on how Canadians feel about their career growth, finding a new job, and employer outlook visit here. Research methodology is shared below. 

Methodology 

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 1,000+ Canada-based members respond each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners & retirees are excluded from analysis so we’re able to get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy.

Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for.

Canada’s workforce is bracing for a tense holiday season, with fewer people planning to take time off this year and a majority reporting work or job-hunt related stress.

LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence Index report – based on a survey conducted between November 2 and 15 – sheds a light on how LinkedIn members are spending the last couple months of the year of 2020, compared to the same period last year, as well as how men and women may be experiencing remote work differently.

Holiday plans and sentiment for the winter:

• 88% of respondents are planning to do less traveling this holiday season, either within or outside the country.
• 55% say they’re planning to take less time off overall than the same time last year, and just 13% are planning to take more time.
• About 31% say they will spend more time working this year, compared to just 17% planning to work less and 53% planning to keep the course.
• Some 65% of employed workers said they’d been somewhat or very stressed about their workjust entering the season, while 78% of jobseekers said the same about their jobseeking activity.

For the full results, including insights around the differing concerns among men and women working onsite and remotely, visit here. 

Methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey that is distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 1,000+ Canada-based members respond each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners & retirees are excluded from analysis so we’re able to get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy.

Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for. Confidence index scores are calculated by assigning each respondent a score (-100, -50, 0, 50, 100) based on how much they agree or disagree with each of three statements, and then finding the composite average score across all statements. Scores are averaged across two waves of data collection to ensure an accurate trend reading. The three statements are: [Job Security] I feel confident about my ability to get or hold onto a job right now; [Finances] I feel confident about my ability to improve my financial situation in the next 6 months; [Career] I feel confident about my ability to progress in my career in the next year.