Although the hiring demand for social and emotional skills (SES) took a hit during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it experienced a quick rebound by 2021 and showed an even stronger growth trend between 2021 and 2023.
A report by the Conference Board of Canada’s Future Skills Centre, published on June 13, 2024, found that people skills such as communication and teamwork are some of the most sought-after SES by Canadian employers.
The number of knowledge-based job postings with SES as a requirement went up by 36 per cent between 2021 and 2022.
Meanwhile, the percentage of knowledge jobs requiring SES dropped to 82.7 per cent in 2020 but rose to a new high of 88.2 per cent in 2023.
The most sought-after attributes in the current hiring landscape are interpersonal skills and personal qualities.
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Other in-demand personal qualities are leadership and adaptability for knowledge-based positions.
SES, also referred to as “soft skills” or “21st-century skills,” are the skills that help individuals understand and manage their own emotions, as well as recognize and influence others’ emotions, according to the publication.
These skills are often recognized by employers as crucial for successful interpersonal interactions and for navigating different social contexts.
They are categorized under four subgroups in the Vicinity Jobs database: people skills, personal qualities, resource management skills, and cognitive skills.
In 2023, 70.9 per cent of knowledge-based job vacancies had personal quality requirements in their ideal candidates, and 71.3 per cent of the job postings for knowledge workers needed people skills that allow them to work effectively in a group.
The high demand for these two skill sets has been consistent between 2018-2023.
Communication, teamwork, and leadership skills are the three SES that appear in the job postings for knowledge-based workers most often.
Almost half the job postings require a certain level of communication skills in their candidates.
Provincially, Ontario has the largest demand for SES in knowledge workers, and Atlantic provinces had the fastest increase in demand for over the last five years.
In New Brunswick, for example, only 68.6 per cent of job postings sought SES in their candidates in 2018 – which rose to 91.1 per cent after five years.
This is an average annual increase of 5.5 percentage points.
Newfoundland and Labrador also saw a progressive growth in the hiring demand for SES between 2018 and 2023.
In terms of sectors, information and financial services seek SES the most, with 96.3 per cent and 95.8 per cent of the knowledge-based job postings requiring SES in 2023, respectively.
This is because the financial sector relies a lot on client relationships, which demands strong SES so that employees understand and process client needs, build rapport, and communicate financial information in an effective manner.
Other sectors heavily reliant on SES are educational services, healthcare, and professional services.
The observable pattern is that SES demand is higher for those jobs that need post-secondary education (PSE) than those that only require high school diplomas.
There were SES requirements in 90 per cent of knowledge-based job postings that required a university degree in 2023, compared to only 80.3 per cent for secondary school diploma.
