| Those cities that have special advantages for service activity (such as Vancouver and Calgary) are places that are expected to grow in the future. But different services have different requirements, spatial distributions, and quite different rates of growth. Between 1986 and 1996, wholesaling grew faster than retail, and retail convenience grew faster than retail shopping activity. The financial sector grew at a rate between wholesale and retail. Growing at an overall rate of more than 40%, business, leisure and personal services generated almost half the new jobs in the service sectors. More than 800 000 jobs were created in the service sector, with business services alone contributing 340 000 jobs. Within the public services, there is a striking difference between the education and health services, and public administration. Whereas education and health grew at a rate close to the overall growth rate of all services, governments reduced their employment by 55 000 jobs, resulting in a decline of 7%. The implication of these sectoral variations is that the patterns of service specialization directly affect the growth rates of cities. Services vary in the number of jobs created, as well as the preferred locations for those jobs.
Service Sector Growth, 1986 to 1996: Overall Assessment
Table 1 explores the growth differences among the sectors, based
on the employment data for 1986 and 1996 Censuses of Population.
The difference in the employment totals (1996 value minus 1986 value)
is called the absolute growth, and the absolute growth divided by
the 1986 value is called the growth rate. The absolute growth column
indicates that, during this ten-year period, the Canadian economy
had a net creation of over 1.6 million jobs, all of them in the
services. Other sectors of the economy, such as the primary industries
or manufacturing, lost jobs in aggregate. Thus, in terms of employment
growth, the entire story is found in the services. The numbers suggest
that service activities and service locations are absorbing employment
growth from other economic sectors and other locations, and thus
driving the national growth pattern. Within the services, commercial
activities grew at a rate of 26.5%, contributing 71.8% of the employment
growth in services, while the public-sector activities grew at a
rate of 18.0%, generating 28.2% of the growth in service employment.
Table 1. Growth Rates by Service Sector, 1986 to 1996 (jobs measured
in thousands)
Growth Rates by Service Sector, 1986 to 1996 (jobs measured
in thousands)
| Wholesale |
540.0 |
667.1 |
127.2 |
7.5 |
23.6 |
| Retail |
1466.1 |
1655.9 |
189.8 |
11.1 |
12.9 |
Conveniencea |
740.0 |
888.4 |
148.4 |
8.7 |
20.0 |
Shoppingb |
726.1 |
767.5 |
41.4 |
2.4 |
5.7 |
| Finance |
653.1 |
756.3 |
103.3 |
6.1 |
15.8 |
| Commercial
Services |
1964.1 |
2767.0 |
802.9 |
47.1 |
40.9 |
Business |
540.8 |
881.5 |
340.7 |
20.0 |
63.0 |
Recreationc |
835.7 |
1125.5 |
289.8 |
17.0 |
34.7 |
Personal
d |
587.6 |
760.0 |
172.4 |
10.1 |
29.3 |
| Total
Commercial |
4623.2 |
5846.3 |
1223.2 |
71.8 |
26.5 |
| Public Services |
2668.1 |
3149.0 |
480.9 |
28.2 |
18.0 |
Education |
790.1 |
962.1 |
172.0 |
10.1 |
21.8 |
Health |
987.8 |
1352.2 |
364.4 |
21.4 |
36.9 |
Public
Administration |
890.2 |
834.8 |
-55.4 |
-3.3 |
-7.0 |
| Total
Services |
7291.3 |
8995.3 |
1704.0 |
100.0 |
23.4 |
| Other
Sectors |
4377.2 |
4315.6 |
-61.6 |
n.a. |
-1.9 |
| Total
Employment |
11668.5 |
13310.9 |
1642.4 |
n.a. |
13.9 |
|
Source: Statistics Canada. 1986 and 1996 Censuses of Population
a food, automotive
b fashion, furniture, department stores, speciality retail
c accommodation, food, recreation
d personal, membership, miscellaneous
n.a. refers to not available
|
