Number of employees in the agriculture sector, 2022

The number of employees was derived from T4 slips produced by agricultural businesses identified by the Agriculture Taxation Data Program. The "full-time," "part-time" and "seasonal employee" categories were derived from these employees' employment incomes, which were compared with the median wage of agricultural workers in their industry as reported in the Labour Force Survey, as well as the monthly employee account reported by agricultural businesses through payroll deductions and payments.

Starting with the 2020 reference year, a farm is defined as an operation that produces at least one agricultural product and will report revenue and/or expenses for that agricultural production to the Canada Revenue Agency, as opposed to the previous definition based on the intention to sell agricultural commodities. Data prior to 2020 have been revised to align with the most recent definition.

Data for this series are subject to revision up to five years prior to the current reference year.

Today's release on estimates of agricultural employees is part of Statistics Canada's AgZero modernization project. This project uses leading-edge methods, data integration and advanced technologies to reduce the response burden on farmers to as close to zero as possible.