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Head offices in Canada

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For Canada's bigger businesses, a head office-a separate unit dedicated to managing the business and its operations-is where many key decisions are made. Cities see them as prize jewels that provide relatively high-paying jobs and a source of metropolitan pride.

Concern has grown recently that head office employment is on the decline in Canada. The concern is that not only are head office jobs migrating to other countries, but that many of the jobs that support head office operations-in the high-value accounting, legal and financial services sectors-might also be lost. However, head office employment in Canada remains steady overall, with neither strong growth nor decline in the number of head offices or employees. In fact, both increased marginally from 1999 to 2002.

Growth in head offices was strongest in the manufacturing, real estate and information industries. The wholesale trade, mining, oil and gas extraction, and construction industries saw the number of head offices decline about 8% during this period. Overall, there were just under 4,000 head offices in Canada in 2002.

Of Canada's 170,000 head office employees in 2002, over two-thirds worked in Ontario and Quebec. Montréal lost head office employees from 1999 to 2002, whereas Toronto solidified its position as Canada's leading head office centre, adding nearly 5,000 white-collar workers. During this period, the total number of head office employees in Canada grew 1% annually.

In the West, a dramatic shift has occurred. In 1999, British Columbia had the most head office workers in the region, with about 20,000. By 2002, this figure dropped to 16,500, whereas Alberta's count climbed to over 21,000, and Calgary supplanted Vancouver as Western Canada's leading head office centre.