| Public services include public-administration employment
in the federal, provincial and municipal governments, as well as
employment in education and health care. Defence employees are also
part of the public-service sector. We used to think of City Hall,
or the Post Office or other administrative offices of the various
levels of government as the primary public-service employers, but
the explosion of government expenditures on education and health
means that these latter activities are now among the very largest
service sectors. The public sectors together employed more than
2.8 million people in 1996, more than one-third of all service workers,
based on data from the 1996 Census of Population. Public administration
favours the capital cities; in recent years, however, the increasing
employment in education and health services has favoured public-service
specialization in urban centres based on the location of universities
or regional health-care facilities.
Geographical Description
On this map, the size of the circles is proportional to the population
of the cities, while the degree of specialization for public services
is shown by the colour in the legend. Overall, public facilities
tend to be spatially distributed in a 'lumpy' fashion, with high
concentrations of jobs in capital cities, military bases, locations
of universities and the like. The degree of concentration in larger
cities is about the same as that of private-sector services. The
spatial distribution of government employment, however, is largely
independent of per capita income. For example, Vancouver and Calgary
are wealth centres but have few government employees, whereas Ottawa
and Yellowknife are high-income places heavily specialized in government.
Federal and provincial administrations are highly concentrated in
the seats of government, which are typically one of the largest
cities in any given province or territory. Within the public-administration
group, the federal government is by far the most centralized, followed
by the provincial governments, whereas municipal employment is as
widely dispersed as many private-sector activities. Education and
health care are collectively and individually more closely linked
to the population than public administration; this is particularly
true of education, which is strongly oriented to larger cities.
To properly interpret this map, please consult the text Data
and Mapping Notes.
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