IT workers not logging extra hours

Report by Statistics Canada dispells notion of overworked IT staff, shows skilled immigrants filling jobs

Nearly three per cent of all employed Canadians worked in IT in 2001, according to a recent study published by Statistics Canada.

The Statistics Canada article, published in the July Perspectives on labour and income, said that IT workers tend to be relatively young and highly educated. They earned more money in 2001 on average but did not put in longer hours than their counterparts in other occupations.

About 75 per cent of the 387,500 IT workers in 2001 were concentrated in four main occupations:

•information systems analysts and consultants;
•computer programmers;
•user support technicians; and
•computer and network operators and Web technicians.

Of the remaining 25 per cent, half were computer and software engineers.

Most IT workers not self-employed

Nearly 90 per cent of IT workers in Canada were employed by someone else in 2001. But the situation varied for some IT occupations. For example, more than one in four Web designers were self-employed.

Young workers

Younger entrants into the labour market were attracted to new IT occupations. In 2001, the average age of such workers was 36 compared with 39 for all occupations. Workers within some specialties were even younger. For example, nearly seven in 10 Web designers were under the age of 34.

Compensation

Median incomes for IT occupations indicate high returns for this highly educated group who, for the most part, earned more than the rest of the labour force.

Only 14 per cent of all employed workers earned $60,000 or more in 2001, compared with 29 per cent of IT workers. Furthermore, while more than 35 per cent of the total employed earned less than $20,000, the proportion was only 17 per cent among IT workers.

Women making headway

The study suggests women have been making headway into areas that have traditionally been dominated by men. Women in IT occupations had higher than average levels of education. Two in five held a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with just one in five of all employed women. More than half had specialized in applied sciences, engineering and mathematics, compared with fewer than one in 10 of all employed women.

But women still have a ways to go in the IT field. In 2001, only about 25 per cent of the IT workforce was female. But in some areas, the percentages was much higher. For example, 42 per cent of database analysts and administrators were women, 41 per cent of systems testing technicians and 333 per cent of Web designers and developers.

The immigrant factor

Statistics Canada said the 1997 policy of making it easier for immigrants seeking computer-related jobs to enter Canada seemed to have had the desired effect.

The number of immigrant employees was proportionately higher in IT occupations than in the general workforce in 2001. Immigrants made up 47 per cent of software engineers, 40 per cent of computer engineers and 37 per cent of computer programmers. Nearly half of these workers came to Canada during the 1990s, most of them during the high-tech boom of the last decade, according to Statistics Canada.

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