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Expanding the skilled manufacturing workforce with AI (Deloitte)
Produced with the Manufacturing Institute, this report finds that US manufacturers may need to fill 2.3 million technician job openings between 2025 and 2030, as demand for multiskilled technicians continues to outpace demand for production occupations more broadly. It argues that generative and agentic AI can help close this gap by embedding expertise directly into technician workflows, lowering barriers to entry for less experienced workers and those transitioning from adjacent industries, while enabling experienced technicians to take on more complex responsibilities. The report outlines five actions manufacturers should take to prepare, including redesigning workflows around human-AI collaboration and updating training programs and career pathways to reflect new AI-related skills.
Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility for Climate Resilient Infrastructure: Implications for Skills (Diversity Institute, Toronto Metropolitan University)
This report examines how municipalities can embed inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA) into climate-resilient infrastructure planning, given that the risks of climate change fall disproportionately on Indigenous Peoples, women and equity-deserving groups. It finds that a key barrier is a capacity and skills gap among municipal staff, since existing frameworks tend to target specialized practitioners rather than the smaller teams typical of many municipalities. The report recommends that municipal staff build competencies in five areas, including data analysis, community engagement, procurement, inter-departmental collaboration, and monitoring and evaluation.
A Skills-Based Approach to Career Transitions: Identifying Pathways for Workers and Communities Facing Economic Disruption (IRPP)
This IRPP study demonstrates how a skills-based approach to career transition planning could work in practice, applying a data-driven methodology across seven Canadian communities vulnerable to disruption from the shift to a low-carbon economy. Rather than starting from credentials or job titles, the approach maps what workers actually do day to day, then identifies alternative occupations with similar skill requirements, filters them for local viability and pinpoints the specific skill gaps workers would need to bridge. The study calls on governments to institutionalize this approach within existing employment and training programs and to invest in the granular, timely skills data needed to make it work, particularly for smaller and rural communities.
