Future Outlook

What's the outlook to 2014?

The Canadian Occupational Projection System (also known as COPS) produces a forecast of GDP and employment by industry for the province. This forecast is based on economic models and because it predicts the future, it may not be accurate. However, it does give an indication of the direction in which the economy may be going in the next few years.

BC's economy, as measured by real GDP, is expected to increase 31% between 2004 and 2014. The service sector is forecast to provide most of the impetus for growth, expanding 33%. In the goods sector, economic growth is expected to be more constrained, rising 25%.

The service sector is forecast to continue to grow more rapidly than goods-producing industries

However, employment isn't expected to keep pace with GDP growth, suggesting that most of the gains will be due to higher labour productivity.

Total employment in the goods sector is forecast to reach 488,000 by the year 2014, an increase of 12% relative to 2004. Job growth in the service sector is expected to be stronger (+17%, to 1,903,000), but will still lag behind GDP growth. To put that into perspective, it's expected that the number of service sector workers in 2014 will exceed the total number of workers in the province in 1999.

What comes next?

This resource describes how the British Columbia economy is structured in general terms, and it compares employment, GDP and various characteristics of workers in the goods and service sectors.

What does all this mean for workers or job-seekers in the province? It's important to understand the big picture, but you should also have a good understanding of what's happening, and what's expected to happen, within these sectors. In the Major Industries section, specific industries within the goods and service sectors are examined. It begins by describing each of the province's major goods industries and then looks at the service sector. For each industry, it includes information, where possible, about:

• How it developed
• What's included in the sector
• What's happened since 1990, and the sector's size relative to the total economy in terms of both GDP and employment
• The most common occupations in the industry
• How many people work in the industry, and how much they earn
• Various characteristics of the work force, such as:
  • the male/female composition of the work force
  • whether jobs are part-time or full-time
  • unemployment rates
  • self-employment
  • union coverage
• Establishment size
• Where the jobs are located
• The outlook for employment and GDP in the industry up to 2014

Although most of the information is available by industry, there are a few holes in the data, especially for some of the smaller industries.  Hopefully this information will give you a better understanding of how BC's economy works.