Harvey Krahn and Graham S. Lowe

The ability to read, write and use numerical information is crucial for labor market success and social well-being. Inadequate literacy skills reduce employment prospects and limit participation in society (Power, 1983; CERI, 1992; OECD and Statistics Canada, 1995). Also, countries with highly literate populations are expected to be more competitive. The argument goes that success in today's global economy requires skilled workers capable of continually learning and adapting to change (OECD and Statistics Canada, 1995; Statistics Canada, 1996; Clark, 1996). Thus, literacy is central to discussions about human resource development and skills use at the individual, workplace and national levels.

This article examines the "fit" or "mismatch" between the job requirements of Canadian workers and their literacy skills, profiling patterns of literacy use and under-use in the labor market. The study uses the Canadian component of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) to measure three types of literacy (prose, document and quantitative) (see Data source and definitions).

Initial IALS findings underscore the importance of literacy for individual economic success: large income "penalties" and "bonuses" exist for low and high literacy levels, respectively, in Canada and the United States (Statistics Canada, 1996). But the IALS results also hint at possible under-use of literacy skills. For example, international comparisons suggest that some Canadian workers - notably those in skilled craft occupations - have fewer opportunities to use their literacy skills on the job (Statistics Canada, 1996; Crompton, 1996). This study focuses on the issue of literacy under-use, arguing that it has serious implications in an economic environment that increasingly rewards skiffs acquisition and lifelong learning.

The analysis was guided, among others, by the following question: to what extent do Canadian workers use their literacy skills on the job? That is, what is the fit or mismatch between workers' literacy skills and their literacy needs in the workplace?

Although the term "underemployment" is sometimes used to indicate insufficient hours or weeks of work, it also aptly describes the under-use of skills (Redpath, 1994; Statistics Canada, 1997).

Adapted from Literacy Utilization in Canadian Workplaces, published by Statistics Canada (Catalogue no. 89-552-MPE, no. 4) and Human Resources Development Canada. Harvey Krahn is with the Department of Sociology at the University of Alberta. He can he reached at (780) 433-1644 or bkrahn@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca.
Graham S. Lowe is with Canadian Policy Research Networks. He can be reached at (780) 492-0487 or graham.lowe@ualberta.ca.

The International Adult literacy Survey (IALS) was a seven-country (Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States) cross-sectional research initiative conducted in the autumn of 1994. Its goal was to create comparable national literacy profiles, by testing literacy proficiency with sophisticated measurement techniques using "real-world" materials. More detail on the study design and measurement techniques can be found in OECD and Statistics Canada (1995) and Statistics Canada (1996).

The IALS measured proficiency in three distinct literacy domains (Table 1):

Prose literacy - the knowledge and skills needed to understand and use information from texts including editorials, news stories, poems and fiction;

Document literacy - the knowledge and skins required to locate and use information contained in various formats, including job applications, payroll forms, transportation schedules, maps, tables and graphics; and

Quantitative literacy - the knowledge and skills required to apply arithmetic operations, either alone of sequentially, to numbers embedded in printed materials, such as balancing a cheque book, figuring out a tip, completing an order form or determining the amount of interest on a loan using an advertisement.