Have fun with numbers! Everyone can play along!

What do Riverview, New Brunswick and Niagara Falls, Ontario have in common (besides being named after a body of water)?  Saint John, NB has the #1 employment concentration among hundreds of municipalities across in Canada for what industry?

First the ground rules.  This is specific to municipalities not urban centres (CMAs, CAs).  It is based on municipalities with at least 10,000 in the employed workforce (you have to have some reasonable denominator) and it is based on Location Quotient (LQ) values which calculate employment concentration relative to the national economy.  For example, Halifax has a Retail Trade LQ of 1.04 meaning it has four percent more employment in retail trade compared to Canada as a whole and adjusted for the size of the labour market.

What to Riverview and Niagara Falls have in common?  They are the only two municipalities in Canada to top the employment concentration chart in two separate two-digit NAICS industries.  Riverview is tops in retail trade and administrative and support services (tied with Saint John) and Niagara Falls is tops for both arts/entertainment and accommodation/food.  Just to be clear – of the hundreds of municipalities in this list Riverview and Niagara Fall are on top of two each out of 17 industries.

At this point it is important to point out that employment by industry figures from the Census are based on where you live not where you work.  Riverview is home to a ton workers in  retail trade and administrative and support services – two large sectors of the Greater Moncton economy.  If you want proof that the Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe economy is highly interdependent – giddy up.

Saint John, as already stated, is tied for the highest concentration of administrative and support services employment in the country.  Where is Moncton, you might ask?   It seems that many contact centre workers (administrative workers) are showing up in Finance and Insurance which makes sense.  All three municipalities Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe have a much higher Finance and Insurance LQ than Saint John – and all well above the national average but not as much as Markham!

The full list is below.  A few other surprises on this list and some obvious choices (e.g. Brampton).

If you want this kind of analysis at a deeper level, 4 digit NAICS – it is available at the urban centre level.  I just don’t have the time today to look.

The #1 municipalities in Canada for employment concentration (minimum 10,000 employed workforce and LQ value in brackets).

NAICS 11 Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting –  Leamington (6.96)
NAICS 21 Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction  –  Wood Buffalo (20.27)
NAICS 22 Utilities  –  Rouyn-Noranda (3.68)
NAICS 23 Construction –   Saint-Lin–Laurentides (1.98)
NAICS 31-33 Manufacturing  –  Le Granit (3.32)
NAICS 41 Wholesale trade  –  Dollard-Des Ormeaux (2.44)
NAICS 44-45 Retail trade  –  Riverview (1.43)
NAICS 48-49 Transportation and warehousing  –  Brampton (2.74)
NAICS 51 Information and cultural industries  –  Saint-Lambert (2.56)
NAICS 52 Finance and insurance  –  Markham (2.42)
NAICS 54 Professional, scientific and technical services  –  West Vancouver (3.86)
NAICS 56 Administrative and support services and waste management –  a tie Saint John (2.08) and Riverview (2.08)
NAICS 61 Educational services  –  Waterloo (2.00)
NAICS 62 Health care and social assistance  –  Thunder Bay (1.55)
NAICS 71 Arts, entertainment and recreation –   Niagara Falls (3.98)
NAICS 72 Accommodation and food services  – Niagara Falls (2.85) 
NAICS 91 Public administration  –  Yellowknife (4.28)