National Adult Literacy Database

The authors of this review have analysed research materials to determine whether it is possible to accurately predict labour market needs.

They explain that there are two major approaches to occupational forecasting: workforce projection and labour market analysis. Workforce projection produces longer-term federal and provincial forecasts, while labour market analyses (LMA) identify and continually adjust to current regional and short-term trends.

Their analysis resulted in a two major conclusions. First, the quality of the literature devoted to labour market forecasting is inconsistent. Second, forecasting research is very much source, location, and time specific, so it is not clear if the models will perform as well in other forecasting situations.

The authors conclude that there is no single forecasting model that can accurately forecast labour market needs in all situations.