A recent report published by the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) says that Canada’s oil and natural gas industry can be expected to support 6.6 million person-years of employment for Canadians from 2017 to 2027. But what does that rather impressive-sounding number really mean?
One way to look at the number is that it’s equivalent to employing a single individual full-time for 6.6 million years. Not entirely practical or realistic—who knows where we’ll be in 6.6 million years? It’s also equivalent to employing 6.6 million people for a single year.
Perhaps more meaningful given the time frame of the study, is that the industry can be expected to support roughly 600,000 full-time jobs a year for the next 11 years. That’s a lot of work for a lot of Canadians.
The CERI report also crunches the numbers on the economic impact of Canada’s industry in the U.S. down to the state level—through spinoffs like supply chain purchases and support to the U.S. downstream sector. CERI found that Canadian oil and gas supports about 406,000 jobs in the U.S.
A few more eye-opening numbers from the CERI study:
- From 2017 to 2027, Canada’s oil and natural gas industry is expected to contribute $2.7 trillion to Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). That’s about $245 billion a year—nearly the same as the entire current annual GDP of Finland.
- The contribution to U.S. Gross State Product (GSP) is projected to be $45.6 billion—or about 13 times the net worth of President Donald Trump as reported by Forbes.
The CERI study notes that this level of trade, economic growth and employment is the product of a deeply integrated economic relationship between Canada and the U.S., in many ways made possible through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into effect in 1994.
