Chapter 3: The Job Market
3.2 Job Market
The job market is where people search for jobs and organizations seek out employees. It is not an actual place rather a concept that tracks job availability and job seekers. Over the last century, the Canadian economy has evolved through being an agriculture-based economy to a manufacturing economy to what is now considered a service economy. This means that most available jobs are found in the ‘Service Industries’ which includes the Recreation and Leisure Industry.
It is common to see the terms job market and labour market used as interchangeable and for most purposes this is fine. However, in the way governments define and use the term labour market, it considers more factors than just supply and demand of jobs. It also considers wages and industry types.
Governments collect data on occupations and industries and combine this data to create projections for job growth.
To understand the type of jobs available, the Government of Canada has created the National Occupational Classification (NOC) system. Using this system anyone can learn where a job/occupation has been classified. You can use the NOC to learn about the main duties of an occupation, average salaries, educational requirements, and other useful information.
There are over 40,000 job titles categorized into 516 unit groups. Each unit group is given a 5-digit NOC code. These classifications are used to support career and job decisions by individuals, and support government policy development, and program design to enhance service delivery to Canadians. The NOC system starts with 10 broad occupational categories.
10 Broad Occupational categories of NOC
| Code | Broad occupational category |
| 0 | Legislative and senior management occupations |
| 1 | Business, finance, and administration occupations |
| 2 | Natural and applied sciences and related occupations |
| 3 | Health occupations |
| 4 | Occupations in education, law and social, community and government services |
| 5 | Occupations in art, culture, recreation, and sport |
| 6 | Sales and service occupations |
| 7 | Trades, transport and equipment operators and related occupations |
| 8 | Natural resources, agriculture, and related production occupations |
| 9 | Occupations in manufacturing and utilities |
To create the full NOC code, there is a hierarchical structure that further breaks down jobs into categories until you get the 5-digit code. You can find the full explanation of the hierarchy at National Occupational Classification
As you can see from the Broad Categories chart, Code 5 is ‘Occupations in art, culture, recreation, and sport’. So, it stands to reason that you would find all the jobs in the Recreation and Leisure Industry under Code 5. However, as we stated in Chapter 1, our industry is not that simple or narrow. In fact, jobs in the Recreation and Leisure Industry span multiple occupational categories.
NOC Recreation Codes
Below are some of the NOC codes that result from a search for “Recreation” under job title on the National Occupational Classification website.
NOC 31204 = Kinesiologists and other professional occupations in therapy and assessment
NOC 32109 = Other technical occupations in therapy and assessment
NOC 33109 = Other assisting occupations in support of health services
NOC 41406 = Recreation, sports and fitness policy researchers, consultants and program officers
NOC 50012 = Recreation, sports and fitness program and service directors
NOC 54100 = Program leaders and instructors in recreation, sport and fitness
NOC 64322 = Outdoor sport and recreational guides
NOC 65211 = Operators and attendants in amusement, recreation and sport
NOC 70012 = Facility operation and maintenance managers
It is interesting to note that the same search for job title with ‘Leisure’ shows less results, but the results it does show are captured in the above ‘recreation’ list.
From the above codes, you see that the Recreation and Leisure Industry spans 6 of the 10 Broad Categories resulting in 9 different occupational unit groups. Remember, each unit group has multiple job titles attached to it. For example, there are 88 job titles attached to NOC 54100. This is further proof of how broad the Recreation and Leisure Industry is.
On the Ontario Labour Market – Search Job Profiles website, you can use these NOC codes to look up information such as average incomes, job growth rates, job titles, and projected job openings. On the page shown for the NOC code you selected, you will also find a link to the Government of Canada Job Bank. This link will search the Job Bank for available jobs under that NOC Code in Ontario.
