An extremely vital part of the Canadian economy is none other than the service sector. Retail, transport, distribution, food services, professional services are some of the services this sector is involved in along with other service-dominated businesses.
Manufacturing
The changing marketing trends have opened up new markets for Canadian goods. The country is also changing the ways its goods are produced. Since Canadian manufacturers have been investing in research to bridge the gap between research and market, they are able to keep up with the changing market trends with ease.
Natural resources
A significant portion of Canada’s total wealth comes from natural resources. Fluctuation in prices, stocks and extraction costs largely determines its value at any given time. Canada’s natural resource wealth grew 10% per year during the last decade due to the rise in prices.
Mining sector
A major generator of wealth and employment for Canadians, the mining sector contributed $87 billion to Canada’s GDP, which made for 3% of the GDP, while employing over 596,000 people from urban, rural and remote regions of the country.
Industries: The Backbone of Canadian Economy
The economic growth of a country can be understood from several factors such as gross domestic product (GDP per capita), recession periods, unemployment rate, inflation, per capita income, economic slowdown, purchasing power, deficit, expenditure, financial crisis, surplus economy, living standards etc. However, one major determinant of any economy is Industries.
Let’s understand whether the living standards of Canada are at par to your standards.
Canada is well known for its hospitality towards immigrants. It takes many measures to ensure their success in its economy. The country has designed a number of economic class immigration programs. These help candidates understand where they stand on their chance of finding a good job in Canada’s labour market.
Also, to ensure the economic integration of immigrants, Canada provides $1.5 billion in funding to support the settlement of new immigrants. These funds have helped and would continue to help immigrants find jobs as well as improve their language skills.
With vast amounts of information made available with just a few clicks, you owe it to yourself to make a well-informed decision about which province to live in when you make plans to immigrate to Canada. Each province of this country is different from the other in terms of resources, employment prospects, and demographics. Be aware of what province better suits your needs for a smooth immigration experience.
Canada can be divided into 3 major industrial regions, the first being Ontario and St. Lawrence Valley. Counted among important manufacturing regions in Canada, this region is the manufacturing hub of major products like paper, cheese, flour, agricultural machinery. It also houses very vital industries like copper and nickel smelting, chemical industry and iron and steel industry. Quebec, Ontario, Ottawa, Toronto and Hamilton are this region’s industrial hotspots.
The second is the Prairie Region. This region has major agro-based industries, its major centres of production being Manitoba, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Alberta. Besides agro-based industries, petroleum refinery and chemical industry are also noteworthy in this region.
The third is the Pacific Coastal Region. Industries like paper and pulp, furniture and agricultural machinery make this an important industrial region of Canada. The major industrial centres of this region are Vancouver and Prince Rupert.
According to the official August 2020 survey, the top 5 contributors to the Canadian GDP are:
1. Real estate, rental, and leasing
With respect to investment and future in development, real estate markets of Vancouver and Toronto lead the real estate industry.
The property market as a whole is very healthy. Rental rates have been on the rise. New supply is being made available in many Canadian cities to keep up with the high demands, which are expected to keep the real estate industry growing for a long.
The rental housing sector, with houses built for the sole purpose of renting, in Canada is supported by the current economic and demographic changes. More and more people looking to cut costs prefer to rent space, as it is an affordable alternative to buying a home, hence making renting a more attractive option. The rental market is also seeing more customers due to the Government’s actions that suppress the demands of homeownership.
Renting office space in buildings makes up a very healthy area of the real estate market. As Canada continues to gain employment in the fast-growing technology industry, this has proven positive for the office sector.
2. Manufacturing
The manufacturing sector is quite a critical part of this country’s economy. Canada is the second-largest economy among developed nations, mainly due to the production, distribution, and sake of various products by the manufacturing sector. Goods produced by this sector are also exported to many countries and contribute to the revenue.
A range of products, including heavy-duty equipment used in the extraction of natural resources from land and water, and its a distribution to various industrial hotspots are manufactured in the country. Mining, fishing, oil, natural gas, textiles, and paints, are few industries that rely heavily on the products of this industry.
Durable goods and edible goods also come under the manufacturing sector. They include goods for your homes, transportation, and the communication industry, as well as dairy products and processed foods and drinks. Along with being the biggest market to the natural resource industry, this sector also produces goods for packaging and storing various manufactured products.
Manufacturing contributes to the consumer as well as labour markets. Although there have been changes in the global economic trends, the manufacturing sector of the country has expertly adapted to them. As a result, now there are fewer regulations on Canadian products. This industry aims to produce newer goods that have greater demands in the market.
3. Construction
The construction sector has always been a crucial driver of the general Canadian economy. The state of the construction industry is reflective of how strong or weak the Canadian economy is at any given time.
Canada is widely known as one of the world’s largest markets for the development of infrastructure in residential, commercial as well as industrial sectors. Many large-scale infrastructure projects have been undertaken by this sector across the country and many more are on the way.
The construction and infrastructure sector has grown immensely over the last 10 years. Around 50 skyscrapers have been built in major cities of the country like Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary. Infrastructure Canada also supported 6500 new projects which aimed at creating and repairing expressways and highways stretching for kilometers across the country.
4. Finance and insurance
Many changes have been made in the finance and insurance industry of this country in the past ten years. These have made the industry more stable and strengthened it to be able to keep its promises and meet the demands of its ever-increasing consumers. The finance and insurance sector of Canada is projected to flourish even when the economy may be volatile.
The industry remains resilient and continues to get growth and maintain overall profitability despite turbulence within the global economy.
Strong effective oversight and regulation have resulted during a successful financial industry enjoying assets of quite $514 billion in Canada, making the industry 4th largest contributor to the GDP of the country.
Those in the industry always look for ways to increase expense efficiencies and reduction of cost, hence maintaining customer satisfaction. More and more people are starting to invest in small businesses and turning to the finance sector for supporting businesses and financing their innovations.
5. Health care and supplementary benefit
Canada’s healthcare industry is rapidly growing. Large investments have not only been made in the general public sector but also in this industry’s personal sectors. Canada aims to provide the public access to healthcare at reasonable prices. As a result, the Government spends more than 10% of its GDP in its health care industry. Canada is counted among the developed countries with the best healthcare sector.
Spending nearly $5000 in healthcare spending per capita has resulted in Canada having a very healthy population. The citizens of the country enjoy a better overall quality of life.
The healthcare industry mainly transacts, one with the Canadian Government or the other with the provincial Governments. Private healthcare companies have modified their business models to be more incorporative. International companies also are starting to conform to the wants set by the government of Canada, because otherwise, they are in danger of losing access to a big portion of the worldwide marketplace for healthcare technology.