At $109 bn, Canada’s Digital Economy is a great opportunity for newcomers

Canada’s Digital economy now contributes 5.5% of the total GDP with nearly 900,000 jobs in 2017, as per StatCan. This presents a great opportunity for new immigrants with a digital background.

I can’t even count the number of times I have been asked this from a prospective immigrant – “What’s the scope of XYZ in Canada?”. I have always maintained this – if you are in IT and Digital, then Canada is a great place to be. And now, I have numbers from StatCan to support this.

In a recent report released by StatCan, Canada’s official statistics agency, the digital economy stood at $109.7 billion, or 5.5%, of total economic activity in Canada in 2017. That’s even greater than mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction (4.8%), transportation and warehousing (4.6%) and utilities (2.4%) in 2015.

While the Telecom sector remained the largest contributor to the Digital economy, eCommerce remained the fastest growing. In fact, e-commerce’s contribution more than doubled, from 5.5% of the digital economy to 12.4%.

As per StatCan, in 2017 there were 886,114 jobs in digital, that’s 4.7% of all jobs in Canada.

For folks with experience in Shopify, Magento, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Oracle Commerce Cloud, and Elastic Path, Canada is waiting for you with arms wide open.

Here’s a drill down of what the digital economy looks like, as per StatCan.

column stacked chart&8211;Chart3, from 2010 to 2017
Contribution to digital economy gross domestic product by domain, Canada, 2010 to 2017
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190503/cg-a003-png-eng.htm

So having said that, you are probably thinking which Canadian provinces offer the most digital jobs. As per StatCan, Ontario had the highest contribution to the Digital Economy, followed by Quebec, British Columbia and Nova Scotia.

bar clustered chart&8211;Chart4,

Digital economy gross domestic product as a proportion of the total economy, by province and territory, 2017
Source: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190503/cg-a004-png-eng.htm

For people with skills in digital technologies like Automation, AI, Cloud, Design, Full-stack, Commerce, Marketing, DXP, CRM, etc., this is great news. You can confidently look forward to a promising career in Canada’s growing digital economy.

Author: Sandeep Mishra

When I am working, a customer experience design practitioner and consultant; when am not - a traveller, photographer, dog lover, graphic designer and a tech enthusiast.

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