Educational attainment among the Nova Scotia workforce has been on a relatively steady rise for decades. However, while that may seem to suggest that everyone in the workforce is becoming more highly educated, this is not necessarily the case. As labour market demands change and jobs require increasingly skilled labour, each new cohort entering the labour force has responded by attaining higher levels of education.
Over time, as new and higher educated cohorts have entered the labour force and older cohorts with lower postsecondary attainment rates leave the labour force, the overall postsecondary attainment rate has increased. This trend will continue even without policy intervention, as new and younger workers continue to replace retirees in the labour force.
| Age | 25-44 | 45-54 | 55-64 | 65+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 67.69% | 59.02% | 57.15% | 40.42% |
| 2023 | 74.93% | 71.97% | 65.08% | 54.25% |
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CHANGES TO THE INDICATOR, BASELINE, OR TARGET:
- The indicator was changed to measure postsecondary attainment of the population age 25-64, rather than the 15 and over quoted in the OneNS report. This was done because it seemed reasonable to exclude the postsecondary attainment of 15-24-year-olds, who are generally still in school, and of those 65 and older, who are generally not in the labour force.
- This change to the indicator resulted in a higher baseline (65% vs 55%).
- The target was also increased by 10 percentage points, in line with the increased baseline.