Do you ever wonder if your job is a springboard to success or a treadmill to nowhere? Navigating career paths and striving for professional growth are integral aspects of many workers’ lives in today’s dynamic labour market. Career prospects have the potential to influence job satisfaction and occupational choices. So, how do Canadians see their future at work?
Most employees agree that they have good career prospects
Through a supplement to the Labour Force Survey, employees aged 15 to 69 years were asked in March 2022 and 2024 if their main job offered good prospects for career advancement. In March 2024, 61.7% of workers agreed that their main job provided good career prospects, just over the figure from March 2022 (60.0%).
Career prospects vary by age group and employee preferences
In March 2024, employees aged 25 to 44 years were more likely (67.5%) to agree that their main job offered good career prospects than employees aged 15 to 24 years (56.8%) and 55 to 69 years (51.2%).
These data partly align with worker preferences: based on data from August 2022, fewer youth (59.6%) and persons aged 55 years and older (47.8%) who were in the labour force indicated that career prospects were essential or very important in a job compared with those aged 25 to 44 years (67.5%).
The lower proportion of younger employees who agreed that they have good career prospects is also due to the relatively high share who are students. Some students may prioritize part-time or flexible hours rather than finding a career-track job. Indeed, when excluding students, employees aged 15 to 24 years were just as likely to agree that their job had good career prospects (67.0%) as those aged 25 to 44 years (67.5%) in March 2024.
Career prospects also varied among racialized populations. When taking into account differences in age and student status, 86.0% of Japanese employees and nearly 8 in 10 Filipino employees (79.0%) aged 25 to 44 years agreed that that their main job offered good prospects for career advancement. These percentages were higher than the figure for non-racialized, non-Indigenous populations (67.7%). At the same time, 59.3% of West Asian and 58.9% of Latin American employees agreed that they had good prospects.
Full-time employment tends to be associated with better career prospects
Full-time employment is more likely to be associated with good career prospects compared with part-time employment. In March 2024, 65.5% of employees who worked full time agreed that their main job provided good career prospects, compared with 43.7% among those who worked part time.
Higher rates of part-time employment among women (22.3%) than men (12.3%) partly explain why women (59.5%) were less likely than men (63.9%) to indicate that they had a job offering good careers prospects. However, even among full-time employees, a smaller proportion of women (63.9%) reported having good career prospects compared with men (66.9%).
Skill level of job drives higher career prospects
Occupations requiring higher training, education, experience and responsibilities (TEER) tend to have a higher proportion of employees with good career prospects.
In March 2024, workers in management occupations were the most likely to agree that they had good career prospects (76.2%), followed by occupations that usually require a bachelor’s degree (71.5%) and occupations that usually require a college diploma (66.4%). Employees in occupations requiring no formal education were least likely to agree (44.5%) that their job offered good prospects for advancement.
While having a university degree tends to help access occupations that provide better career prospects, the skill level of an occupation is a stronger predictor of having good prospects than educational attainment itself. Indeed, less than half (46.4%) of employees with a university degree working in a job requiring no formal education (TEER 5) agreed that their job had good career prospects. This figure is similar to that for people in the same type of job who had a high school degree or less (44.5%).
Chart 1: Skill level of job leads to higher career prospects
Description - Skill level of job leads to higher career prospects
The title of the chart is “Skill level of job leads to higher career prospects.”
This is a vertical bar chart.
The vertical axis represents the proportion of individuals who agree that they have good career prospects.
The vertical axis goes from 0% to 80%, by increments of 10%.
The horizontal axis represents the training, education, experience and responsibilities (TEER) occupation categories and includes management occupations, professional occupations, TEER 2 occupations, TEER 3 occupations, TEER 4 occupations and TEER 5 occupations.
There are three series. The first series represents post-secondary, bachelor’s or higher degree. The second series represents post-secondary education below a bachelor’s degree. The third series represents high school or less.
For management occupations, the first series is at 78.8%. The second series is at 72.8%. The third series is at 70.2%.
For professional occupations, the first series is at 71.1%. The second series is at 73.3%. The third series is at 70.6%.
For TEER 2 occupations, the first series is at 67.2%. The second series is at 65.9%. The third series is at 66.9%.
For TEER 3 occupations, the first series is at 57.8%. The second series is at 53.3%. The third series is at 56.4%.
For TEER 4 occupations, the first series is at 54.3%. The second series is at 55.0%. The third series is at 50.5%.
For TEER 5 occupations, the first series is at 46.4%. The second series is at 43.8%. The third series is at 44.5%.
Source(s): Labour Market Indicators (5375), March 2024, custom tabulation.
Note(s): TEER: training, education, experience and responsibility.
Average weekly wages and hours worked may affect career prospects
Occupations offering good career prospects also tend to offer higher wages. In March 2024, employees in professional occupations in law (86.8%) were among the most likely to agree that their job offered good career prospects. Employees in these occupations also had the second-highest average weekly wages ($2,832).
Professional occupations in engineering (81.5%) and occupations in front-line public protection services (which include firefighters and police officers) (83.5%) were also among the most likely to agree that their job offered good career prospects. Both were over four-fifths male and had high weekly wages.
Employees in support occupations in art, culture and sport (38.2%), in occupations in art, culture and sport (38.8%), and in sales and service support occupations (41.1%) were among the least likely to agree that their job had good career prospects. On average, these three occupation groups also had the lowest hours usually worked per week.
In 2023, sales and service support occupations was the largest occupational group, comprising 8.9% of total employment. It had the lowest average hourly wage ($18.78 per hour) and among the lowest average weekly hours worked (24.6 hours per week).
More information on the National Occupational Classification (NOC) TEER classification can be found at the following link: Variant of the National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2021 Version 1.0 for Analysis by TEER (Training, Education, Experience and Responsibility) categories.
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