The Future of Entry-Level Jobs

The Productivity Project is a collaboration among the Alberta Centre for Labour Market Research, LearningCITY Collective, Canada West Foundation, Mount Royal University, and the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. The project team is addressing a pivotal question: How can human capital drive Canada's productivity?

In the past year, The Productivity Project has released two series of reports.

Series 1: People & Productivity explored the relationship between human capital and productivity.

Series 2: Talent Reimagined develops a Lifelong Open Learning Architecture as a comprehensive policy framework to strengthen the development, use, and sustainability of regional human capital. 

Series 3: The Future of Entry-Level Jobs

Series 3 explores the fundamental challenges facing entry-level employment. 

Nowhere is labour market disruption more apparent than entry-level job. Automation and artificial intelligence are rapidly reshaping early-career work, and employment data shows a sharp decline in entry-level job postings. Youth unemployment is double that of other age groups. Historically, entry-level roles served as a bridge between learning and work. They allowed individuals to demonstrate skills, build professional networks, and develop a career identity through real workplace experience. As these pathways thin, the labour market loses a key mechanism for converting learning into productive performance. The result is slower skill development, weaker talent pipelines, and growing difficulty connecting people to opportunity.

The Question: If traditional entry-level pathways are disappearing, what can replace them?

To kick-off this series, we are hosting a half-day interactive workshop, bringing together employers, educators, and young people to explore the forces reshaping our labour market to examine the challenges and opportunities in the world of entry-level employment.

Agenda

8:00am — Registration

8:30am — Welcome and context setting

8:45am — Experience with the entry-level transition

9:00am — A stakeholder's perspectives

9:50am — Comparing perspectives

10:10am — Break

10:25am — Real-world scenarios

11:00am — From challenge to opportunity

11:50am — Next steps

12:00pm — Adjourn

 

Please note as a interactive workshop, our goal is to have balanced representation from employers, educators and student/ alumni. Please register in your category. If registration is full, please email dfinch@mtroyal.ca to be added to the waitlist.