Bridging Generational Divides, Digital Skills for the Future of the Trades in Canada

Young people entering the trades today often face outdated training and assessment models and persistent structural barriers to digital upskilling. This summary looks at ways to overcome these challenges. Among the highlights:

• Improving digital skills will be the most important factor in adapting Canada’s skilled trades to the future of work.
• Tradespeople will need seven core digital skills: technical, information management, digital communication, virtual collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving in digital environments.
• Today’s apprentices are digitally savvy, whereas the established journeypersons who mentor them did not grow up with digital devices and media.
• Certified journeypersons also face multiple barriers to digital upskilling, from the overwhelming pace of digitization to a lack of basic computer literacy among some older workers.

Click here to download the full article.

Click here to listen to a podcast about the article.

Credit: The Conference Board of Canada https://www.conferenceboard.ca/