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Driving Change with Natural Gas
Clean, abundant natural gas is a significant driver of Canada's economy and supports a substantial number of jobs in the country. Nearly 600,000 Canadians worked in jobs supported by natural gas in 2008, contributing $106 billion to the nation's GDP.
In fact, the economic impact of natural gas in Canada was larger than the total GDP of all but four Canadian provinces that year.
According to a study conducted by IHS Global Insight, every Canadian province has natural gas-related jobs. Even those with no production have direct jobs in areas such as distribution, pipeline transportation, upstream support and construction services.
Comparing Canadian results with a similar study in the U.S., natural gas had a greater relative impact in Canada, accounting for 3.5% of all Canadian jobs and roughly 6.7% of Canada's overall GDP.
Among the top provinces in terms of jobs and economic impact:
Alberta (324,700 total jobs in 2008), British Columbia (111,743) and Ontario (99,314) were the top three provinces in terms of overall jobs supported by natural gas.
Over 16% of Alberta's employment was attributable to natural gas, with BC (4.8%) the second largest beneficiary of Canada's nat gas abundance. Saskatchewan was third (4.5%).
Alberta has the largest financial stake in natural gas, which supports 27.7% of the province's total GDP, or $80 billion in total economic impact. Saskatchewan ranked second, with natural gas supporting 5.1% of total provincial GDP, at over $3 billion; and BC ranked third, at 4.5% of total provincial GDP, or $9 billion.
