Michelle Samson:
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Welcome to Making it in Ontario, your window into what's next in
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Ontario's manufacturing sector from the
data driven researchers at the Trillium
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Network for Advanced Manufacturing.
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I'm Michelle Samson.
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Brendan Sweeney: And I'm Brendan Sweeney.
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Michelle Samson: All right.
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Brendan, some eagle eye listeners
might be wondering why this episode
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is a lot shorter than our other ones.
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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah, this season of
Making It in Ontario, and I think future
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seasons, we're going to try something out.
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We're going to have some mini episodes,
some shorter episodes, that really just
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focus in on some hot off the presses
topics, uh, and that are really just
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designed to give a bit of a primer
on some of our reports, some of our
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data bulletins, some of our research.
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Michelle Samson: Yeah and if there's
big news in the manufacturing
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ecosystem, then that might be
the topic of an episode as well.
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So this obviously is
one of those episodes.
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What is hot off the press today?
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Brendan Sweeney: So it's
a new data bulletin.
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These data bulletins are
something that we, uh, had some
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success with in 2022 and 2023.
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And this particular data bulletin
follows a broader program of work at
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the Trillium Network that began in late
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2020
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The focus of this program of work
is on DEI, on Diversity, Equity,
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and Inclusion in Manufacturing.
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In the past, we've really had
a specific focus on gender.
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We published our flagship, a landmark
report about gender diversity in
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manufacturing in February 2021.
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Uh, later we published an associated
data bulletin that kind of lines up
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with some of the work that we did there.
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That data bulletin plotted different
manufacturing industries in Ontario
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by compensation, and by the proportion
of women that they employed as a
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proportion of their overall workforce.
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And we found a pretty explicit,
pretty direct relationship, inverse
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relationship: the higher the
pay, the fewer women there were.
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The lower the pay, the more women
there were, with one exception.
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Pause for Michelle to
ask about the exception.
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Michelle Samson: Pause
for dramatic effect.
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What is our one exception?
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Brendan Sweeney: Pharmaceutical
product manufacturing.
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And it was just, I mean, it really you
can see in our data bulletin, you can see
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on the graph just how much it stands out.
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And from there we dug in a bit, we talked
to some companies, we looked at some
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more data, and what we learned was that
the occupational mix was very different.
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in pharmaceutical product manufacturing,
than it was in other industries
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that we were more familiar with,
automotive, aerospace, machinery.
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Big difference in pharmaceutical
product manufacturing is that there
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are lots of scientists, chemists,
biochemists, very few tradespeople.
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And what the reality of that is,
in Ontario, people with science
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degrees are much more likely to
be women than people with a trade.
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And that's just the
reality of the situation.
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So on the one hand, you
know, industry is important.
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The industry you work in is important.
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And as a determinant of, you know,
what the, the gender mix will be.
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But it's important because of
the occupational mix in there.
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and so we actually have another data
bulletin, one of our first, that
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illustrates this, the occupational
mix in different industries.
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And it really does show that
within manufacturing, individual
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industries are, are themselves quite
distinct in their occupational mix.
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Some rely, like pharmaceutical, rely on
a lot of scientists to get the work done.
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Others, like, metalworking
rely on a lot of tradespeople.
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And then everything in between.
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Michelle Samson: That is such
an important perspective or a
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different way of looking at it.
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So what about this new data bulletin?
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What's going to be covered here?
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Brendan Sweeney: This one focuses on
some, uh, new to the last census data.
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And it's specifically focused
on race and ethnicity.
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And so we organized the data similar to
the way we organized gender before, but
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it focuses specifically on the proportion
of persons in any given manufacturing
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industry in Ontario who identified
on the census as a visible minority.
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And then we kind of plot and
examine those data by compensation
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and by specific industries.
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Michelle Samson: Very interesting.
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So what does the data show?
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Brendan Sweeney: Interestingly enough,
it shows almost the exact same curve,
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not the exact same, but almost the
exact same curve as our analysis of
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gender by industry by compensation.
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Higher paying industries within
manufacturing tend to employ fewer persons
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who identify as visible minorities.
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Lower paying industries tend to,
employ a greater proportion of persons
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who identify as visible minorities.
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There were a couple more exceptions
or outliers in this case, though.
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And that was really interesting.
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Pharmaceuticals.
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Pharmaceuticals on, on that diversity
angle, just check out really, really well.
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Pharmaceuticals also checks out on
a lot of other really interesting
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stuff: R&D, investment, pay.
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but aerospace, which didn't check out
too well on the gender front, checked
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out really well on the pay compensation.
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But aerospace is a high paying
industry that employs an above
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average proportion of persons who
identify as a visible minority.
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And electronics did, quite well too.
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I mean, what's left of our electronics
industry in Ontario, post Nortel,
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post BlackBerry, um, a lot of
that's really high end stuff.
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And those companies pay well, for the
most part, and employ a relatively high
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proportion of persons who identified
on the census as visible minorities.
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Michelle Samson: Interesting.
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So was it education again
that made the difference?
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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah, occupation
and education, definitely that
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was one of the variables we ran.
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We've got a table in the most recent
data bulletin that shows a bit of that.
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And industries with a higher proportion
of university graduates also have a higher
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proportion of visible minority employees.
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Conversely, industries with a higher
proportion of trades have lower
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proportions of visible minority employees.
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Michelle Samson: In the case of
visible minorities, the historical
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patterns of immigration make
a difference here too, right?
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Brendan Sweeney: Big time, and if we
look at the recent historical pattern
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of immigration, or today's pattern
of immigration, relative newcomers to
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Canada, people who are joining us, you
know, today, yesterday, a year ago,
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tend to be very well educated, tend to
have university education, or are coming
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here to get a university education
and then staying here via a permanent
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resident or path to citizenship program.
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And conversely, you know,
historically, where have people
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who with a trade come from?
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From Britain and Central Europe.
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So that really does kind of
flavor the demographics of the
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workforce and, by education, by
occupation, and continues to do so.
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Michelle Samson: Really
fascinating findings.
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So let's bring it together.
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What does it all mean?
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Brendan Sweeney: Okay, I think there's
three things that are really important
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to know here that, you know, one
is demographics change in Ontario.
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As more people from all over the
world, more university educated
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people come here, we might need to
think about focusing on manufacturing
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investments that fit the workforce
rather than trying to fit the workforce
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into our manufacturing investments.
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So the two industries that really
jump out there: Pharmaceutical
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Product Manufacturing and Aerospace.
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Electronics are great.
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I don't know how much electronics
investment there is on the horizon, but
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we do know that pharmaceutical products
or life sciences generally, uh, and
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aerospace are really good fits for our,
uh, existing and evolving workforce.
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Two, and this is one of the more
provocative things that I'm on about
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these days, but something really
needs to give with the trades.
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you know, we understand there are a lot
of opportunities in the trades and that
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they pay well, but I think we really need
to ask ourselves, well, why are women,
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why are other under represented groups
just largely absent and continue to be
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largely absent from the trades, at least
in manufacturing, and I think this is
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a broader systemic problem, and things
won't change until the system changes.
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Michelle Samson: Absolutely.
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And culture is such an
important part of that, right?
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It's shifting, not just offering
the opportunity, but shifting
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the culture to make people feel
welcome in these environments.
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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah and shifting
broader institutions like apprenticeship
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systems that tend to exclude.
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women and a lot of underrepresented
groups or, really don't
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afford opportunities there.
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And then, um, third, all the data, you
know, we let data point us to conclusions,
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and my conclusion, this has been pretty
consistent over the past few years,
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you know, that pharmaceutical product
manufacturing, especially biopharma, is
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one of the most productive segments of
manufacturing and scores well on just
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about every indicator that we want,
whether it's R&D spending, whether it's
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earnings, the pharmaceutical product
manufacturing industry pays really, really
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well, and as this shows on every element
of diversity that we could come up with.
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aerospace is doing pretty well too.
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but These industries are both good
evidence that if you pay attention to
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diversity, if you embrace diversity,
it's a good business practice.
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Michelle Samson: Love that.
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Ending on a high note.
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We've covered the highlights of this
report, but I'm sure there's more details.
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Where can they find the data bulletin?
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Brendan Sweeney: Yeah, in the kind of
research and publication section of
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our website, uh, we will also probably
have kind of some blog post links to it
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throughout the website and we will be
telling people about it via LinkedIn.
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Michelle Samson: And as always,
you can find it in the show notes.
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We'll definitely put a link in there.
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Brendan Sweeney: You bet.
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Happy friday.
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Michelle Samson: Making it in Ontario
is an initiative of the Trillium
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Network for Advanced Manufacturing.
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It is produced by Storied Places Media.
