Canadian National Occupational Classification

About NOC

The NOC is the authoritative source of information on occupations in Canada. It is used daily by thousands of people to understand the jobs available in the Canadian job market. Learn more about the NOC.


Introduction

The National Occupational Classification (NOC) is the nationally accepted reference on occupations in Canada. It distributes more than 30 000 job titles into 520 occupational groups. The NOC is used daily by thousands of people to compile, analyze and communicate information about occupations and to learn about jobs across the Canadian job market.

The NOC provides a standardized framework for organizing the world of work consistently. It is used to collect and organize occupational statistics and to provide information on the labor market. The structure and content of the NOC is also implemented in several departments and leading products in the private and public sectors.

In collaboration with Statistics Canada, the NOC is updated every 5-year Census cycle. It is based on research and consultations conducted across the country, reflecting developments in the Canadian job market.

We hope that your session on the website of the NPC 2006 will be informative and useful.

Methodology

Review Methods for the National Occupational Classification (NOC)

The NOC is a standard that classifies and describes occupations in the Canadian economy. This is the basis on which statistics and career information are founded on in the labor market. So that it can remain accurate and useful, the NOC must be revised periodically to reflect developments in the fields of technology, in organizations and in the language of work. Revisions are made every five years jointly with the phases of the Census intervals.

Previous to the update of 2006, consultations were held with Sector Councils, representatives of industries and members of the public at the federal, provincial and territorial levels of governments to identify areas where changes are possibly needed .

In some cases, these consultations have revealed that changes were needed at a structural level. However, according to an agreement with Statistics Canada, the changes are seen during a period of ten years, allowing users to compare statistical data from different periods. Any change to the classification structure would slow these comparisons, which play a fundamental role in pattern recognition. For this reason, the update of the 2006 NOC was limited to minor changes, including adding new titles to existing groups, validating and editing the content in the descriptions of some basic groups and correcting and improving the index of names and correspondences between French and English.

Analysts were assigned to sectors of employment by skill type classification. As part of a field of specialization, analysts have revised the requests of users from the NOC inbox, the correspondence generated by sectors and employers and problems reported by any statistical or coding operations. They have identified gaps and possible changes and new professions. Analysts have also reviewed the documentation, study areas, professional standards, career information, Web site industries and job postings that were available at their disposal. They analyzed the information received from the Job Bank job postings to identify fluctuating tasks and accreditation requirements.

Other methods of primary research on occupations were available to analysts to clarify issues of content for grassroots groups and job titles. These methods were used during the first elaboration of the NOC. They relied on interviews with employers, observations, interviews with workers, interviews of expert groups or surveys of employers and employees. The studies could either be contracted out or performed internally. For reasons of economy during the 2006 revision, contractors have conducted research in certain fields of employment and interview methods were only used in order to clarify issues raised by stakeholders, the users and literature reviews.

Analysts have prepared draft revisions, which have in turn been revised, with their supporting evidence by experts in occupational classification within HRSDC. Statistics Canada then revised the proposals to consider their impact, operational feasibility and their ability to be encoded. Finally, revisions were discussed and accepted, modified or rejected by a committee of experts from the classification of the two departments.

Future revisions of the NOC will revisit the issue of structural changes and the continuing need to represent accurately the features of the changing world of work.


The NOC is revised according to census cycles. Since the significant changes made to the structure in 2001, NOC has seen a minor revision in 2006.

The NOC organizes the world of work in a standardized and structured format. It provides a description of information about occupations in the Canadian job market.

NOC-S to NOC Concordance

NOC-S to NOC concordance is a coding system of two components implemented by Statistics Canada and detailed in its publication to gather statistics on the coding structure of the NOC. This coding system allows users to link data reported by Statistics Canada to intermediary groups and basic groups of the NOC.