Informations that we already have

Did you ever ask yourself how many technicians there are in the province of Québec ? What is the percentage of women ? What is the average age for technicians ?

Some data about Information technicians is available on Statistiques Canada’s and the Observatoire de la culture et des communications du Québec’s web sites.
These are the facts that interested us the most!

    •    The 35 and under age group composes 29,3% of the technicians in Québec. The age group where we can find the most technicians according to the Observatoire de la culture et des communications’  2006 investigation (the numbers just got published) is 45-54 year olds with a percentage of 32,3%. There will really be massive retirements in 5-10 years.
    •    The growth rate expected between 2008 and 2012 by Service Canada is 1,3% (compared to the 1,1% to the set of all other professions).
    •    According to the census, the fields that employ the most technicians in Canada are :
    •    49% Libraries
    •    18% Academics
    •    11% Public administration
    •    11% Health and social assistance
    •    The average income for canadian technicians working full time year-round was 37471$.
    •    70% of canadian positions are full time.
    •    In this province, the number of positions has gone from 3200 in 1996 to 2615 in 2006.
    •    Women technicians constitute 82% of the workforce and this data has been stable for the last ten years, in Québec and the rest of Canada.
    •    In Canada, 27% of technicians have a university diploma in addition to their college degree.

A few observations on these numbers. After looking at the methodology used by these two organizations, we feel the information is to be taken with a healthy skepticism. For example, statistics about Information technicians can be found mostly in the cultural section. Records management is not really an artistic activity (even if it can demand creativity !) so the professionals in this job are not really accounted for in the numbers. Consequently, the data is mainly about Information technicians working in libraries and archives.

What do you think of those informations ?

André et Marjolaine