2005 Rankings Report
Canada’s Best Value for Workforce
Ontario and New Brunswick tie for first in this year’s ranking for Best Value in a Canadian Workforce.
Canada has proven itself as a superb destination in which to do business, as well as a feasible nearshoring option for U.S. companies looking to relocate or expand. With this in mind, we felt it was important to include our neighbors to the north in this year’s rankings. Canada’s educated and low-cost workforce is one of the nation’s greatest draws, so we decided to investigate which provinces hold the best workforce value for companies.
Source: Statistics Canada
Although different types of companies require different worker skill sets, there are still some rudimentary factors that permeate every industry when it comes to labor-pool basics. Business Facilities’ Best Values in Canadian Workforce ranking attempts to tap into these factors based on information gathered from the Statistics Canada Web service.
In order to determine which Canadian province has the “best bang for your buck” when it comes to each province’s workforce, these seven factors were taken into account:
- The April 2005 unemployment rate, weighting a higher unemployment rate as more advantageous;
- The unemployment rate change from April 2004 to April 2005;
- The April 2005 average hourly wage of full-time employees among all professions, weighting a lower wage as more desirable;
- Percentage change in the average hourly wage for April 2004 to April 2005;
- Days lost per worker by cause for 2004;
- Percentage of the population with a high school diploma for ages 15 and over; and
- The percentage of the population with a bachelor’s degree ages 15 and over.
This year’s ranking yields a tie for first between Ontario and New Brunswick. Although both provinces appropriated the title of Best Value in Canadian Workforce, taking a look at the results it becomes clear that they both earned the title for distinctly different reasons.
One of the more interesting differences appears in how each province ranked in the Average Hourly Wages category. Their results here are in stark contrast to each other. Ontario has the highest wage and New Brunswick has the lowest wage of all the provinces, making New Brunswick the better value of the two by this yardstick. Yet in another category, Percentage of the Population Holding Bachelor’s Degrees, the two provinces fell toward the other extremes; here Ontario secured the number one spot, and New Brunswick scored close to the bottom. In the other five categories the two provinces generally only fell within a few spots of each other. Needless to say, both these Canadian provinces shine as areas that can offer companies a significant value when it comes to their workforce.
