The Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) has developed a Skills and Competencies Taxonomy. The Taxonomy was developed to complement other federal, provincial, and territorial employment programming efforts around skills identification and utilization, and facilitate a Pan-Canadian dialogue on skills.
ESDC developed the Taxonomy keeping two objectives in mind. One is to streamline the terminology across competency domains and concepts such as skills, personal abilities and attributes, knowledge, interests, occupational work context, work activities, and tools and technology information. The other is to compare the incidence and application of terminology across occupations and sectors more accurately.
Furthermore, the Taxonomy was developed based on ESDC’s internal products, the American O*Net system, and diverse national and international competency-based frameworks. The list of sources can be viewed here. The Taxonomy complements the development of a range of labor market information products within ESDC. In addition, ESDC continues to consult with internal and external stakeholders, including the provinces and territories, to validate and improve the content of the Skills and Competencies Taxonomy.
The literature on skills and competencies suggests a nuance between the two concepts. Namely, the competencies involving the use of skills, abilities, and attributes to perform a task or successfully meet demands. This nuance is reflected in the definition of terms such as competencies, skills, and personal abilities and attributes ESDC has proposed for the Taxonomy.
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