The National Occupational Classification (NOC) is a structured list of jobs with descriptive information about occupations across Canada’s labour market. It is used by the Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) for processing of applications for the Skilled Workers and Professionals Program.

It is updated every 5 years by the Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) along with Statistics Canada (STC). The currently available list is the one updated in the year 2011. It is noteworthy that there is a methodology to the research and development that leads to the revisions in the list.  

NOC provides an opportunity to the statisticians, analysts, career counsellors, students, employers and individual job seekers to understand the nature of variety of work in Canada’s labour market in a standardised manner.

Detailed information on the NOC list including tutorial, search, career handbook, occupational structure matrix, FAQs and queries are available online.

There is a structure to the classification of the occupations listed. In order to select the desired skill one must chose from the following 10 categories. These represent the first digit of the NOC code and broadly indicate the area of work.

Four different skill levels (from A to D) are denoted in the second digit if NOC code. These indicate the amount of training or education required for entering an occupation.