The purpose of this workshop was to propose methodologies that can be used to identify skills needs.

In the context of this workshop, skills needs referred to the following:

1. The National List of Occupations in High Demand (OIHD)
2. Provincial lists of Occupations in High Demand
3. The proposed National List of Occupational Shortages
4. The proposed List of Priority Occupations

Currently, OIHD refers to those occupations that have shown relatively strong employment growth, and/or are experiencing shortages in the labour market or which are expected to be in demand in the future. Outcomes of the workshop included consensus on:

• A way forward on amending the current methodology for identifying occupations in high demand, nationally;
• The concepts of occupational shortages and priority occupations;
• The purpose of each list and who the users of the required information will be;
• A way forward for the methodology on identification of occupational shortages;
• A way forward for the methodology to identify provincial list of occupations in high demand; and
• A way forward for the methodology to identify priority occupations.

These insights will be developed further and applied by the relevant project team in carrying out the work that is required under Theme 1 of the LMI: Preparing lists of occupations in high demand, occupational shortages, and priority occupations.