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CareerWise is always on the lookout for the latest reports related to career development. Here are several reports that we found interesting this week.
A Smarter Immigration Strategy (RBC Thought Leadership)
Drawing on consultations with more than 60 economists, demographers and policy-makers, this report examines why Canada’s immigration system has lost its edge, citing a decade’s worth of population growth compressed into three years, a weakened Express Entry points system and a lack of real-time outcome data. It finds that top-scoring Express Entry candidates continue to out-earn other newcomers by a wide margin, but that a proliferation of federal and provincial categories has undermined the system’s original purpose of selecting those most likely to succeed. The report proposes five questions for policy-makers, including setting a stable population growth target, restoring the points system and closing gaps in data on newcomer outcomes.
What We Learned, Where We’re Going Next: Regional Insights from Global Careers Month 2025 (Cedefop, European Commission, ETF, ILO, OECD, UNESCO & IAEVG)
This brief looks back at Global Careers Month 2025, a series of more than 150 career guidance events held across every continent under the Inter-Agency Working Group on Career Guidance. It finds real progress since the first edition in 2022, including growing policy attention and stronger professional associations, but also persistent challenges such as fragmented service delivery, capacity gaps among practitioners, and difficulty reaching informal workers, marginalized youth, migrants and refugees. The brief closes with priorities for the field, including investing in qualified practitioners, securing stable earmarked funding and adapting guidance approaches to local cultural realities rather than importing them wholesale from other contexts.
Labour Force Survey, August 2026 (Statistics Canada)
Statistics Canada’s August release shows employment declined by 42,000, ending a run of gains from April to July, while the unemployment rate held steady at 6.4%. Youth and core-aged employment both edged down, average hourly wage growth slowed to 2.0%, its softest pace since 2017 outside the pandemic, and the report notes that industries dependent on US export demand continue to see higher layoff rates amid new tariffs. On a brighter note, the summer job market for returning students was more favourable than a year earlier, with their unemployment rate averaging 15.9% from May to August.
Life After 50: Two Decades of Change in Canada (Environics Research)
This report compares two nationally representative surveys of Canadians aged 50 and older, conducted in 2005 and 2026, to examine how attitudes toward aging, health, retirement and financial security have shifted over two decades. It finds that confidence has weakened on several fronts: only 45% now believe their generation has a better quality of life than their parents did at the same age, down 20 percentage points from 2005, and the average expected retirement age has climbed from 60.9 to 64.8. The report also points to a widening financial gap, with 29% of Canadians 50 and older now feeling worse off financially than their parents’ generation was, up from 15% two decades ago.
State of Workplace Well-Being 2026 (Dialogue & Leger)
This annual survey of over 1,000 Canadian employees and 200 HR decision-makers finds that mental health, physical health, sleep and financial health have all worsened compared with 2025, with about one in two employees now experiencing some level of burnout. It identifies a widening gap between what employers offer and what employees actually need: access barriers, benefits that don’t match top pressures like financial stress and caregiving, and limited data to demonstrate return on investment. The report calls for a shift from offering disconnected benefits to delivering integrated, continuous care spanning physical, mental and financial well-being.
