Our FOCAL initiative team continues to work on the project’s new research papers and its occupational forecasts. The project’s key goal remains unchanged: to provide relevant and durable labour market information that will help employers and other stakeholders in the Canadian automotive manufacturing sector. 

Prior to the arrival of COVID-19, we had produced seven trend reports on important labour market issues facing the industry, ten comprehensive regional profiles of automotive manufacturing across Canada and seven regional consultation presentations.  

Our team is currently engaged in the production of four more trend reports to be released in the spring of 2020. 

Also slated for release this spring are our regional ‘baseline’ forecasts of the supply and demand for key automotive manufacturing occupations through to the year 2030. These forecasts are based on our extensive economic modelling of the Canadian automotive manufacturing sector and supply chain workforce. A number of other variable forecasts will be produced later in our projects lifespan.

As a result of COVID-19, economic conditions for the remainder of 2020 (and potentially 2021) are likely to be much more challenging than previously expected. However, due to the nature of this downturn and the Canadian automotive manufacturing industry’s prior experience dealing with the 2008-09 recession, there is currently no reason to believe COVID-19 will have significant long-term impacts on labour supply and demand for the broader automotive industry.