This is a follow-up post to the post last week in the wake of an economic overview of the challenges and opportunities facing northern Ontario’s economy presented at the Regional Meetings of the Economic Developers Council of Ontario in Thunder Bay. As the year draws to a close and we enter 2023, along with the demographic indicators, it is worth presenting some of the highlights for the regional economy in terms of economic indicators. This post, a quick overview of some of the key economic trends that have been emerging in northern Ontario over the last while and they provide a framework for viewing the future.
First, Figure 1 looks at the evolution of employment in northern Ontario since 2006 and presents it alongside the similar trend for Ontario as a whole (note the dual scale). Ontario as a whole has seen its employment grow from 6.53 million jobs in 2006 to 7.37 million jobs by 2021 – an increase of 13 percent. Naturally, there have been bumps along the way – namely the 2008-09 Great Recession and of course the 2020 drop in employment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, 2021 saw a recovery from the pandemic drop and as we close out 2022, Ontario has seen employment growth continue. The north is a somewhat different story. Simply comparing the two end points of 2006 and 2021, total employment has declined about 5 percent in the Northeast and about 6 percent in the Northwest. In the wake of the forest sector crisis of the early 2000s, there has been a permanent downsizing of employment in the region – that is, while there has been recovery and there is a stability in employment over the long term, not all of the jobs shed then have been recovered. Moreover, in terms of the pandemic rebound, the northwest in 2021 rebounded better than did the Northeast as illustrated in Figure 2.
The last two decades have seen a period of unprecedented economic change in the north which has seen jobs both created and destroyed and also accompanied by a labor force and population that has been aging at a faster rate than the rest of the province. Altogether, the economy has been stable and has shown signs of growth in several sectors. Employment over the long term has been growing in agriculture, profession, scientific and technical services, education and health and social services. With respect to the two largest cities, employment has actually grown somewhat in Sudbury and Thunder Bay but has shrunk outside of these two centers for the overall slight decline in the region. Moreover, as a result of the rapid aging of the population, the labor force has shrunk faster than employment resulting in unemployment rates as low or often lower than the provincial average.
There is growth in total output in northern Ontario particularly in the major centers of Thunder Bay and Sudbury as illustrated in the two final figures. Real GDP in 2022 will finally have reached pre-pandemic levels in both cities. Post-pandemic recovery in terms of real GDP growth in 2021 was actually better in Thunder Bay relative to either Sudbury or Ontario as a whole. For 2022, the year is expected to end out seeing growth in real GDP in Thunder Bay and Sudbury that pretty much matches Ontario as a whole. The robustness of the mining sector and growing Indigenous economic development, along with opportunities in tourism, agriculture and health and education services appear to be the source of growth and are the drivers in addressing the twin challenges in 2023 of fostering both economic and population growth in the north.