Statistics Canada data reveals highest and lowest concentration of federal workers in cities
Wandering the streets of Ottawa, Halifax or Kingston, Ont.? Then you’re more likely to run into a federal employee, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada. That’s because those three cities have the highest number of federal workers as a proportion of employment — at 19.7, 9.1 and eight per cent of the workforce respectively.
Don’t want to run into a federal bureaucrat? Then hang out in Oshawa, Ont., where only 0.1 per cent of the workforce is on Ottawa’s payroll.
The federal government had a total of 417,700 employees in September, of which 75 per cent (315,000) worked in a census mentropolitan area (CMA) — a proportion that has been stable since 2001.
About one-third of the federal government’s workforce (32.1 per cent) is based in Ottawa-Gatineau, a proportion that has been on the rise since the mid-1990s when it was roughly 26 per cent.
For this report, Statistics Canada included employees of all organization controlled by Ottawa that are not-for-profit and produce non-commercial goods and services on behalf of the government and its citizens, including agencies such as the Canada Revenue Agency, the military and the RCMP. It does not include employees of federal government business enterprises that operate as commercial corporations in the marketplace.
Federal government employment by Census Metropolitan Area
|
Census Metropolitation Area |
Total employment (000s) |
Federal government employment (000s) |
Proportion of workers on Ottawa’s payroll (%) |
|
Ottawa-Gatineau |
680.1 |
134 |
19.7 |
|
Kingston, Ont. |
75.2 |
6.9 |
9.1 |
|
Halifax |
217.5 |
17.4 |
8 |
|
Victoria |
179.7 |
10.3 |
5.7 |
|
St. John's, Nfld. |
104.8 |
5.1 |
4.9 |
|
Moncton, N.B. |
73.6 |
3.2 |
4.3 |
|
Saguenay, Que. |
70.5 |
2.7 |
3.8 |
|
Québec City |
417.9 |
14.8 |
3.5 |
|
Winnipeg |
409.0 |
12.4 |
3 |
|
Regina |
123.7 |
3.2 |
2.6 |
|
Sudbury, Ont. |
82.0 |
2.1 |
2.6 |
|
Edmonton |
614.9 |
14.1 |
2.3 |
|
Abbotsford-Mission, B.C. |
88.7 |
1.6 |
1.9 |
|
Saskatoon |
142.4 |
2.6 |
1.8 |
|
Saint John, N.B. |
64 |
1 |
1.6 |
|
Thunder Bay, Ont. |
60.2 |
1 |
1.6 |
|
Vancouver |
1,275.4 |
18.4 |
1.4 |
|
Windsor, Ont. |
153.3 |
2.1 |
1.3 |
|
Sherbrooke, Que. |
87 |
1.1 |
1.3 |
|
Montréal |
1,957.2 |
23.7 |
1.2 |
|
London, Ont. |
235.1 |
2.6 |
1.1 |
|
Hamilton |
377.4 |
3 |
0.8 |
|
Toronto |
3,011.5 |
22.6 |
0.8 |
|
Guelph, Ont. |
74.5 |
0.6 |
0.7 |
|
Trois-Rivières, Que. |
68.2 |
0.4 |
0.7 |
|
Calgary |
704.2 |
4.5 |
0.6 |
|
St. Catharines-Niagara, Ont. |
190.4 |
1.2 |
0.6 |
|
Peterborough, Ont. |
51.7 |
0.3 |
0.6 |
|
Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Ont. |
265.5 |
1.2 |
0.4 |
|
Brantford, Ont. |
51.8 |
0.2 |
0.4 |
|
Kelowna, B.C. |
103.4 |
0.4 |
0.3 |
|
Barrie, Ont. |
99.6 |
0.2 |
0.2 |
|
Oshawa, Ont. |
193.9 |
0.2 |
0.1 |
