Tourism satellite account: Human resource module

Tourism industries accounted for 1.6 million jobs in 2009, down 0.6% from 2008. This was a less pronounced decline than for jobs economy-wide (-1.7%). Jobs in tourism represented 9.4% of the 17.1 million jobs in Canada.

About 520,000 jobs in tourism could be directly attributed to spending by tourists. The remaining 1.1 million jobs were attributable to spending by local residents on items such as taxis, restaurants, hotels and casinos.

The food and beverage services industry group was the largest employer among tourism industries. In 2009, employment in the food and beverage services fell by 5,000 to 853,000 jobs. Employment in the transportation sector fell by 4,000 jobs to 214,000.

In comparison with other industries, the work week was shorter in tourism industries, reflecting the higher proportion of part-time jobs in the sector.

In 2009, two tourism industry groups had a notably older workforce: 62% of employees in other transportation (which includes rail, water, bus, taxis and car rentals) and 43% of employees in travel services were aged 45 years and over.

Food counter attendants and kitchen helpers and related occupations was the largest occupation group, accounting for 16.4% of employee jobs in the sector. Jobs in this occupation paid an average annual salary of $11,400.

Note: This update of the human resource module includes revised data for 1997 to 2007 and new data for reference years 2008 and 2009. It provides the annual total employment in the tourism industries, which includes jobs that are attributable to demand from both tourists and non-tourists. This is different from the data for tourism employment in the National tourism indicators and the Tourism satellite account, which include only those jobs that are directly attributable to demand from tourists.

The human resource module is funded through a partnership agreement with the Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 1910.

The paper "Human resource module of the tourism satellite account, 2009" is now available as part of the Income and Expenditure Accounts Technical Series (13-604-M2010066, free). From the Key resource module of our website, choose Publications.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact an information officer (613-951-3640), Income and Expenditure Accounts Division.