The Productivity Project
The Productivity Project is a collaboration among the Alberta Centre for Labour Market Research, the Alberta Chambers of Commerce, Mount Royal University, the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, Canada’s Productivity Initiative, and the LearningCITY Collective.
Together, this partnership brings cross-sector expertise to address a single question:
How can human capital drive Canada's productivity?
Series 1
Productivity and People
Economic, social, and cultural dynamics—driven by rapid technological advancements and globalization are profoundly reshaping regional economies. A region’s competitive advantage is no longer dictated by its access to natural resources; instead, it’s rooted in the productivity of its labour force.
Series 1 encompasses six reports that explore the relationship between human capital and productivity. For each report, you have a choice of a summary or the full report. Additionally, each report includes an audio overview.
Series 2
Talent Reimagined
Series 2 introduces Lifelong Open Learning Architecture (LOLA), a comprehensive policy framework to strengthen the development, use, and sustainability of regional human capital.
LOLA functions as both a policy blueprint and an operational model, promoting equity by recognizing competencies acquired through any learning pathway and empowering adults to make informed choices across their fifty-year careers. By establishing a unified framework connecting learning providers, competency colleges, employers, and policymakers, LOLA builds the digital, financial, social, and physical infrastructure required for a truly lifelong learning ecosystem.
Series 2 comprises 10 reports that present a comprehensive ten-year transition roadmap for Alberta.
Series 3
The End of Entry-Level Jobs
Getting your first real job has always been hard. But something has changed — and it is not just the economy or the job market. The system that used to help people move from learning into work has broken down.
For most of the last century, entry-level employment did more than pay a salary. It taught you how to do the job, showed your employer what you were capable of, connected you to mentors and colleagues, helped you figure out who you were professionally, and shared the risk of the learning curve between you and the organization. That bundle of support no longer reliably exists.
Series 3 encompasses seven reports exploring why the entry-level pathway has eroded and what it will take to rebuild it. These reports will be released throughout 2026.
Series 4
Evergreen Capabilities
What if the knowledge and skills that made people valuable yesterday lose value tomorrow? For many Canadians, this is no longer a distant possibility. Rapid technological change, artificial intelligence, globalization, demographic transition, and institutional fragmentation are reshaping work, learning, communities, and the economy.
Canada’s future prosperity will be defined by people. The central question is not only what people know today, but also whether they have the adaptive capacity to keep learning, unlearning, relearning, and applying their capabilities as conditions change.
Series 4 introduces the Evergreen Capabilities Program. The program begins from a simple premise: Canada needs a new way to understand and develop adaptive human capital. Thriving in a changing economy requires more than short-term job-readiness. It requires durable knowledge and skills, domain understanding, applied performance, and credible recognition systems that help people adapt and renew capability again and again.
