Work: Employment Rate (15 years of age and older)

Canada’s employment rate was 61.8% in 2011, slightly up from 61.6% in 2010. An increase in the employment rate demonstrates that either labour force participation rate has increased or the unemployment rate has decreased; both are encouraging signs for the labour market, which ultimately leads to a larger tax base and more sustainable public finances Canada ranked 8^th among the twenty OECD countries, with a rate of 6.7 percentage points above the OECD average.

Unsurprisingly, Alberta’s two CMAs – Calgary and Edmonton – had the highest employment rates among Canada’s major CMAs in 2011 and at the other end of the spectrum, two of Ontario’s major manufacturing CMAs, London and Sudbury, had the lowest employment rates.