Industry continues to employ lion's share of Canadian R&D personnel: StatsCan

Increased R&D spending in the business sector — particularly the service industry — helped push up the number of R&D personnel active in Canada to 199,060, a 5.0% increase over 2003 and up nearly 30% since 1990. Hiring of R&D personnel by the business sector has accelerated as companies gradually increased R&D spending since the high-tech slump of 2002, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada.

The number of R&D personnel engaged in research in all sectors also experienced a healthy 5.4% jump to 125,330 in 2004, while the number of technicians increased 5.7% to 46,890 and support staff increased 1.9% to 26,840. Researchers accounted for 63% of total R&D personnel.

There were 126,670 R&D personnel working in industry in 2004, up 5.4% from the previous year, accounting for 63.6% of the all-sector total. The business share is higher than the national average in Quebec (70%) and Ontario (67%) and lowest in Atlantic Canada where it ranges from 37.3% in New Brunswick to 26.7% in Newfoundland. Even in Alberta, where the private sector reigns supreme, R&D personnel employed by business accounts for less than half the provincial total (45.4%). In Saskatchewan, the business share of total R&D personnel is 31.7%, the lowest in the nation after Newfoundland.

quebec & alberta lead provinces

Provincial R&D personnel data are incomplete due to non-reporting by the Atlantic provinces, but the jurisdictions for which data are available show an interesting divergence. Ontario, which is the nation's R&D powerhouse, has only 390 R&D employees working for the province, compared to Quebec which employs 890, Alberta with 690 and Saskatchewan with 260. The latter three account for nearly 72% of the 2,560 R&D personnel across the country and are also home to Canada's most vibrant provincial research organizations.

higher education

R&D personnel in the higher education sector also registered a healthy increase of 5.5% in 2004, although it's not nearly as large as the 9.6% boost experienced in 2003. As of 2004, higher education institutions and private not-for-profit organizations employed 54,730, of which 41,380 were classified as researchers.

Fuelled by unprecedented increases in support in recent years, the higher education sector accounts for a 28% share of the total. But in an indication of the sectoral shifts in R&D personnel over the past 25 years, the higher education share is actually down from 1980 when it accounted for 44%. That's despite of a 50.3% increase in the number of R&D personnel employed over the same period.

The federal government experienced the greatest decline in its share of R&D personnel, both as a portion of the overall total and in absolute numbers. In 1980, the federal government employed 16,030 R&D personnel, accounting for 19.4% of the total. In 2004, the number had declined to 13,720 while its share dwindled to just 6.9%.

R&D personnel employed by the provinces also fell over the same 25-year period from 3,670 in 1980 to 2,560 in 2004, and its share of the total dropped from 4.4% to just 1.3%. In contrast, business R&D personnel has risen an astonishing 394% over the same period, from 25,640 in 1980 to 126,670 in 2004.

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