A spotlight on Canada’s tourism workforce – trends, forecasts, and tools to keep you current!

Michael Burt leads several knowledge areas at The Conference Board of Canada, including economic forecasting, economic innovation and education and skills. In his role, Mr. Burt oversees the convening and research activities that these knowledge areas undertake, and The Conference Board's contributions to the Future Skills Centre. He provides presentations on a variety of topics to clients and the public and is often cited in the media. Mr. Burt joined the Conference Board in 2004 and has moved progressively into more senior positions since. Before joining the Board, he worked with an economic consulting firm in the United States. Mr. Burt has more than 20 years of experience conducting and leading research activities and has a master’s degree in economics from the University of Toronto, an MBA from the University of Windsor, and has also completed the Chartered Financial Analyst program.

As Vice President, Workforce Strategies, Kim plays a lead role in designing and implementing OTEC’s workforce development consulting solutions. Kim works closely with OTEC’s senior consulting team, network of associates, clients and partners to transition projects from concept to execution. She also leads OTEC’s research and data strategy ensuring OTEC’s workforce solutions are anchored in meaningful insights and evidence. Kim’s passion for workforce innovation and collaborative delivery models has resulted in impactful projects and partnerships that enhance workforce capacity and drive positive social and economic outcomes for people, businesses and destinations.

With over 10 years of leading pan-provincial and national workforce development strategies, Kim is driven to bridge theory to practice through OTEC’s dynamic tourism workforce development portfolio. She has led initiatives related to sector-specific employment and skills training, sectoral responses to labour market shifts and disruptions, diversity and inclusion strategies that leverage workforce technology and cutting-edge approaches to evidence generation and use within sector-based strategies.

In 2019, Kim was recognized as an Aspen Institute Economic Opportunity Fellow after completing the Toronto Sector Skills Academy. Kim holds an Honours Bachelor of Science degree from Queen’s University as well as a Master of Environmental Studies degree in Tourism Policy and Planning from the University of Waterloo.

Austin Hracs is a seasoned analyst, author, and dealmaker. He is the Senior Vice President of Research and Partnerships at Vicinity Jobs. His mandate is to serve Vicinity’s partners as they continue to find new insight and value from their Vicinity data. He spearheads new research projects and collaborations with partners across Canada.

Austin’s entire professional life has focused on understanding and improving Canada’s labour market. Prior to joining Vicinity Jobs, he was the Director of Research and Implementation at Magnet (a division of Toronto Metropolitan University). There he led Magnet’s Training, Research and Insight, Industry Engagement and Employment Teams to support users and partners across Canada. These included job seekers, employers, employment support organizations, educators, and each level of government.

Before Magnet, Austin was a Senior Consultant with MDB Insight (acquired by Deloitte Canada), Canada’s largest economic development consultancy. In this role Austin contributed extensive research, data analysis and strategy advice to projects in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Newfoundland. Most notably, Austin was the lead author for a series of regional and community labour market strategies and research studies.

Austin completed his Master’s degree in Economic Geography at Queen’s University. His work focused on understanding the causal factors associated with attraction and retention of talent to smaller urban centres.

Austin has an Honours Degree in both Political Science and Geography from Brock University.

Austin was born and raised in the City of Richmond Hill, Ontario. He lives in Toronto with his lovely wife Natalie.

Strac Ivanov is the President and Founder of Vicinity Jobs. He is a technology entrepreneur and labour market research innovator. For more than 20 years, he has been building and deploying AI-based natural language processing algorithms to solve real world problems. Strac remains the chief technology architect guiding the evolution of Vicinity Jobs’ leading edge data collection and analytics technologies.
Strac is a recognized expert in the field of Canadian Labour Market Information (LMI), and has been a guest speaker at various Canadian Workforce and Economic Development forums, including the annual Economic Developers Alberta conference, annual BC Economic Developers Association conference, the CACEE West Fall Professional Development conference, and annual CANNEXUS conference.

Strac is an accomplished business leader and a veteran of the online and big data analytics services industry. Beyond Vicinity Jobs, he has led numerous enterprise software, data warehouse, and e-commerce implementation projects, involving integration between various enterprise systems and the implementation and deployment of various Application Programming Interfaces (also called APIs, used to integrate and synchronize data and processes between independent software systems).

Strac holds a Master`s degree in Business Administration from Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (in Vienna, Austria). He wrote his Master’s thesis on the topic of using AI-based Natural Language Processing algorithms to collect and classify unstructured information from online sources. He is also a PMI-certified Project Management Professional. Strac lives in Vancouver with his wife and two children.