This report has been prepared by the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE), led by Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Director. This work was conducted as part of the OECD’s Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme with financial support from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).
This report was drafted by Alessandro Kandiah, Policy Analyst, Local Employment, Skills and Social Innovation (LESI) Division (OECD/CFE), under the supervision of Jonathan Barr, Head of the Employment and Skills Unit within CFE/LESI, who also drafted sections of the report and co-ordinated the project. Anil Verma, Professor, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto contributed drafting inputs and the conceptual framework presented in Chapter 4 of this publication. Karen Maguire, Head of the LESI Division, provided overall guidance. Ida Peltonen and Lucas Leblanc, both from the CFE/LESI Division, contributed to this report through data collection and analysis.
ESDC officials played an instrumental role in helping the OECD to co-ordinate this project, while also providing constructive feedback on the development of the report. In particular, the OECD would like to thank Brodie Berrigan, Executive Director, Tania Claes, Senior Advisor, and Rhonda Fernandes, Director. The OECD would also like to express its gratitude to officials from the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development, with special thanks to Cheryl Donais, Senior Policy Advisor.
The Brookfield Institute for Innovation + Entrepreneurship provided inputs to the report, notably within the section of Chapter 3 on digital skills. The OECD would like to specifically thank Sarah Doyle, Director of Policy + Research, Viet Vu, Economist, Creig Lamb, Senior Policy Analyst, and Rob Willoughby, Data Analyst. Colleagues from the OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, including Glenda Quintini, Senior Economist, and Katharine Mullock, Economist, also provided useful comments on the report.
Feedback and inputs from Ontario Workforce Planning Boards representatives were gathered in Hamilton, Kitchener and London. The OECD would like to thank Debra Mountenay, Executive Director, Elgin Middlesex Oxford Workforce Planning and Development Board, Judy Travis, Executive Director, Workforce Planning Hamilton, and Sohrab Rahmaty, Manager of Employer Relations and Research, Workforce Planning Board of Waterloo Wellington Dufferin.
Lastly, the OECD would like to thank all those individuals who participated in roundtables on the local impacts of the future of work in September 2019 in Hamilton, Kitchener and London. These roundtables brought together over 100 local stakeholders across the three cities.