Skills and Skills Shortages
As part of the background research for Workplace Partners Panel, Viewpoints surveyed 1,169 leaders from the business, labour, and public sector (education, health, and government) communities to determine their perspectives on issues relating to skills and skills shortage (see Figure A.1 for a breakdown of the sample population). The survey was carried out during the months of October, November, and December, 2005.
The Viewpoints Survey was administered by Prairie Research Associates. The sample was drawn primarily using the Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) database, which included private firms, labour organizations, schools and hospitals. For individual constituencies, the identification of respondents was as follows:
Private Sector and Public Sector Labour: Questionnaires were sent to the senior local representative at labour organizations listed in the D&B database. In some cases, these included unions' national offices, in others, local offices.
Private Sector Business: Questionnaires were sent to the senior local representative at business organizations selected (based on regional and establishment size stratification) from the D&B database. In some cases these were corporate offices, in others, individual plants or locations. For large firms, the questionnaires were sent to the vice-president of human resources, while for small and medium-sized firms/locations the questionnaires went to owners, CEOs, or general managers.
Public Sector Management: Questionnaires were sent to the senior representatives of hospitals (usually hospital CEOs or administrators) and elementary/secondary schools (usually principals) listed in the D&B database. The D&B database was supplemented by a representative database of senior municipal government administrators supplied by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Also included were lists of presidents of Canadian universities and community colleges, and senior federal and provincial/territorial government officials at the Deputy Minister/Assistant Deputy Minister level, with responsibility for employment, labour, or labour market matters.
| Private sector managers 37% (n=434) |
Private sector labour leaders 19% (n=221) |
| Public sector managers 25% (n=294) |
Public sector labour leaders 19% (n=220) |