Survey results / In context : sample

So who was targeted by these results ? What was the proportion of technicians that took the survey vs the number of technicians that are presently employed ?

As you know, the survey targeted technicians that graduated in the province of Québec :
•    That are working in French in the province of Québec or the rest of Canada OR
•    Employed in an anglophone workplace in the province of Québec

There were 1065 technicians that took the survey from which 1035 were from the province of Québec.

How many information technicians are there in Québec ?

According to Service Canada, 3050 information technicians work in Québec. Those numbers come from the 2006 census. However, the census works by function declaration which means that someone that is working as an Information technician without the diploma will also be counted in that job category. In our case, we can drop 12,7% from the starting number because we know that these people did not obtain a college diploma.

3050-12,7%=2684

Other people could probably be taken out. They have a college or a university diploma but not as an Information technician. But that percentage is impossible to evaluate. The Institut de la statistique du Québec considers that there are 2615 information technicians in the province. Because the numbers come also from a census, the same precautions apply. We also have to put in perspective Emploi Canada’s conclusions on this career because they don’t concern trained specialists.

For the province, our survey responders represent 40% of the total work force.

How many information technicians are there in Québec ?
Statistique Canada measures the people that actually do technical work in archive centers and libraries as 15485.

12435 would be the number of people that work as Information technicians outside the province of Québec. However, as in the province, that number doesn’t take in account only people that are trained specialists.

There were 33 technicians outside of Québec that took the survey.

Why limit the survey to technicians that graduated in the province of Québec ?
Of course, time and energy are a factor. Getting the rest of Canada to join us would represent a huge effort. But it wasn’t the only consideration. We wanted a normalized pool of technicians trained in the same way for librairies, administrative documents management, archives management and book stores. In our knowledge, the québécois education program is the only one doing that.

André et Marjolaine