BC Business
digital skills of the future
In a new national poll, more than 80 percent of respondents said they don't feel equipped to learn the digital skills needed by businesses today and in the next five years.
What do you want to be when you grow up—or when you leave your current job for something waaay better? No matter what you have planned, you might want to brush up on those digital skills, and we’re not talking about your Insta game.
That’s the takeaway from the Canadian Digital Skills Index, a new national survey by Salesforce, the U.S. customer relationship management giant.
With e-commerce coordinator, data science specialist and user experience researcher among the fastest-growing jobs across the country, according to LinkedIn, it looks like Canadians have some work to do if they want to stay gainfully employed.
Among survey respondents, 81 percent said they don’t feel equipped to learn the digital skills needed by businesses now, while 86 percent don’t feel equipped for the future. Although 73 percent plan to learn new skills in the next five years, just 14 percent are doing so now.
The survey of almost 1,000 people revealed that Canadians see proficiency with collaboration technology as the most important skills needed by businesses today and in the next five years. Still, just 19 percent called themselves advanced in the collaboration department.
Most respondents rated themselves as “beginner” in the requisite skills for three hot job categories: artificial intelligence (78 percent), coding and development (73 percent) and product management technology (60 percent).
Leave it to Gen Z to brag about their “advanced” social media savvy, with 58 percent of respondents from that age cohort making such a claim. Among the same group, though, a mere 17 percent think they have the advanced digital workplace skills that employers actually need.
However, 17 percent of Gen Z respondents also said they’re learning and training for skills that will be in demand over the next five years. Baby boomers? Meh. Only 8 percent of respondents from that group fall into the same camp.
Canada was one of 19 countries surveyed for Salesforce’s Global Digital Skills Index 2022. Our overall score for digital readiness: just 23 out of 100, compared to a range of 15 to 63 for the other nations represented.
You can find the Global Digital Skills Index dashboard here.