Thunder Bay, Sudbury labour force to shrink by 2036, StatsCan projects
Labour force participation rates could drop from 60.4% of the population to 55.5%
A pair of northern Ontario cities are two of the few places in the country where the labour force is expected to shrink by 2036, according to new projections from Statistics Canada.
It defines the labour force as the portion of the population that is working or looking for work. Thunder Bay and Sudbury are both expected to see that metric decline.
Statistics Canada's new report, titled The Labour Force in Canada and its Regions: Projections to 2036, predicts that 55.5 per cent of residents of the two cities will be in the labour force in 2036 if current birth and death-rates and current trends in immigration and job participation stay constant.
That's down from 60.4 per cent currently.
"It would mean that by 2036 in these two urban areas of northern Ontario we could have slightly more than one person in the labour force for every person not in the labour force," said the report's author, Laurent Martel, the director of the agency's demography division.
"It is a significant decrease when we compare it to other areas."
Toronto, he noted, might see its labour force participation rate drop from 67 to 66 per cent over the same time period, however, like most places in the country, the actual number of people working or looking for work there would increase.
"The future development of the labour force is important for several reasons," the report said.
"An abundant supply of labour contributes to economic growth and the tax base on which many government programs are based. The number of people in the labour force relative to those who are economically inactive is an important element in the balance of some programs, including public pension plans."
Governments use data such as Martel's to plan programs, he said. And employers might use it to prepare staffing strategies.
"Training of older workers, keeping them maybe longer in the labour force — all those topics are becoming more and more important as the labour force is changing," he said.
The models don't currently consider trends pertaining to Indigenous participation in the labour force, Martel added.
Thunder Bay and Sudbury were grouped together in his analysis because of their relatively small population sizes.