Welcome to the National Occupational Classification 2016

The NOC 2011 Web site and the NOC 2006 Web site are also available.

Participate in the consultation on occupations

The National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2016 is the authoritative resource on occupational information in Canada providing a standard taxonomy and framework for dialogue on Labour Market Information. It gathers more than 30,000 occupational titles into 500 Unit Groups, organized according to skill levels and skill types.

Ongoing research and updates to the NOC ensure that it continues to reflect occupational changes in the Labour Market. The NOC 2016 revision brought changes to 314 NOC occupational Unit Groups, added 204 new occupational titles, and modified another 21 titles in English. The review of the classification structure was not part of this revision.

Introduction and Overview of changes

• Background
• Modified Unit Group titles
• Modified Unit Group descriptions
• Movement of job titles among Unit Groups

NOC research and development

• Research methodology for NOC revisions
• Approval process

The NOC 2016 structure is identical to that of the NOC 2011. Additional background information on the NOC can be found on the following Websites:

• Structure and format of NOC 2016
• Unit Group descriptions, format and their definitions
• NOC classification criteria (Skill Level and Skill Type)
• Coding and the NOC 2016 classification structure

For more information on the National Occupational Classification, please contact us.

For information about the wide range of services and data available from Statistics Canada, please visit the Statistics Canada Web site or contact them by email.