The national authority for occupations in Canada can be considered the National Occupational Classification (NOC) Organization, which provides a systematic classification structure. This structure categorizes a wide range of work activities in Canada to collect, analyze and publish work data and uses it to classify labor market data and manage recruitment-related programs. Labor information is vital for providing labor market and job intelligence, skills development, job forecasting, labor supply and demand analysis, employment justice, and numerous other programs and services.
A job includes all the tasks performed by particular persons to complete their responsibilities.
The NOC contains nearly 30,000 job titles grouped into 500 units, four skill levels, and ten broad job categories. These groups can often be linked directly to one occupation (such as NOC 3113 – Dentists) or more than one occupation (such as NOC 2271 – Airline Pilots, Flight Engineers, and Flight Instructors). Therefore, each group briefly explains their job (or related jobs), lists its fundamental duties and requirements, and provides examples of titles related to that job.
Students, workers, employers, career and professional advisors, and educational organizations use NOC daily to support career decisions.
These two departments also work together to maintain and update the NOC. The NOC 2016 edition focuses on the contents of single groups without affecting their category structure. The NOC 2021 version, which includes a major structural revision, has also been released for data collection purposes and is expected to be implemented in late 2022 as census data becomes available based on the 2021 version. NOC 2021 content updates will continue regularly after the launch.