Post-Secondary Student Choices and the Labour Shortage in Canada’s Information and Communication Technology Sector

Employers in Canada’s information and communication technology (ICT) sector often claim that they face a shortage of technical talent. This shortage may arise in part from a sharp decline in undergraduate engineering and computing enrolment and graduation rates in Canada beginning in 2002. Even with a recent reversal in enrolment trends, the number of graduates in these fields remains well below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. In this article, we discuss the trade-offs inherent in numerous policies and programs that have been considered in Canada to increase the supply of new graduates in these fields. We suggest that many existing programs are easy to implement and short term in nature but may also have unintended consequences by altering human capital investment decisions. Moreover, many existing policies create incentives that lead to different responses depending on student gender, thereby making it hard to simultaneously reduce labour shortages and boost gender equality in the ICT workforce. We summarize evidence from the economics of higher education literature on student major choice to point to alternative, more long-term policies and programs in which students can learn about their preferences and ability.