Tracking Progress on Supporting Workers and Communities in Canada's Energy Transition
Proactive planning is crucial to supporting workers and communities as the world transitions to a net-zero economy and society. This report proposes a set of indicators that will enable Canada to establish a baseline and track progress to support workers and communities through implementation of the 2024 Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act.
Key Findings
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Measuring the risk exposure and transition readiness of communities requires evaluating the economic importance of fossil fuels to a region's economy and the institutional capacity to enable sustainable jobs and worker supports.
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Response capacity relies on governance structures and processes that foster a whole-of-government approach, ensure corporate transparency and accountability, and bring workers, employers, and Indigenous governments and communities into the conversation.
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The success of sustainable jobs policies includes not just the number of new jobs created but also the quality of new jobs, equitable access to them, and the availability of training opportunities.
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Critical outcomes of Canada's Sustainable Jobs Act include growth of low-carbon industries, alignment with national or regional climate objectives, and improved socio-economic well-being of the population.
This set of key indicators—selected based on federal laws, data availability, and government influence—includes 18 quantitative and qualitative measurements.
Key indicators for tracking progress on sustainable jobs
Risk and readiness
Economic exposure
- Community susceptibility: Workforce disruption based on employment in high-emitting industries and transition-vulnerable sectors.
- Fossil fuel revenue dependence: Percentage of total government revenues derived from fossil fuel-related activities (including direct revenues from fossil fuel taxes and royalties and indirect revenues from income taxes of fossil fuel workers).
Institutional preparedness
- Social protection coverage: Share of the population covered by employment insurance by equity-deserving group and by sector.
Response
Governance and processes
- Governance capacity: Level of resources allocated to a formalized government body (or bodies) responsible for advancing sustainable jobs.
- Indigenous partnership in governance: Extent of Indigenous partnerships and decision-making authority in the sustainable jobs governance processes, as assessed by Indigenous Peoples.
- Social dialogue engagement: Number of workers and community members engaged in tripartite social dialogues and stakeholder forums held in the design, monitoring, and implementation of sustainable jobs policies.
- Private sector regulations: Presence and strength of regulations requiring corporate disclosure and participation related to the transition (e.g., notice of plant closures, number and demographics of affected workers, obligation to fund retraining).
- Policies managing declining industries: Presence of policies to manage the impacts of declining industries, including the fossil fuel industry, and mandate emissions reductions.
Results
Net-zero alignment and economic diversification
- Climate alignment: Extent to which sustainable jobs plans commit to the Paris Agreement and national or regional climate objectives.
- Relative GDP growth: GDP in low-carbon industries compared to GDP in high-carbon industries and overall GDP.
Employment and decent work
- Net new sustainable jobs: Number of net new sustainable jobs created by the sector and region per 1,000 jobs.
- Workforce retraining: Number of workers receiving training to transition into or enter sustainable jobs by equity-deserving group.
- Displaced worker support: Proportion of displaced workers with access to social security, relocation assistance, and affordable housing.
- Sustainable job compensation: Annual (median) compensation in sustainable jobs by sector, compared to median compensation across all jobs.
- Sustainable job retention rate: Proportion of employees in sustainable jobs that retain their jobs for one year or more.
- Collective agreement coverage: Proportion of workers in sustainable jobs covered by a collective agreement by sector relative to the average across the sector.
- Employment equity: Employment rate of underrepresented groups (Indigenous Peoples, women and gender-diverse peoples, people with disabilities, Black and other racialized individuals, 2SLGBTQI+, and other equity-seeking groups) in sustainable jobs.
Social equity
- Income inequality: Distribution of income across a population, indicating the extent of inequality (Gini coefficient).
These proposed indicators provide a starting point for tracking sustainable jobs, but they should ultimately be refined through a collaborative process with tripartite stakeholders (workers, employers, and government), as well as with affected Indigenous governments and communities.
Participating experts
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