BRITISH COLUMBIA LOCAL AREA ECONOMIC DEPENDENCIES: 2006 AUTHOR: GARRY HORNE MARCH 2009 Funding for this project was made possible through the Labour Market Information initiative under the Canada-British Columbia Labour Market Agreement (LMA), which is administered for BC by the Ministry of Advanced Education and Labour Market Development. British Columbia Local Area Economic Dependencies - 2006 Table of Contents Table of Contents .................................................................................................i Preface...................................................................................................................1 Abstract.................................................................................................................2 1. Introduction .....................................................................................................3 2. The Descriptive Results for 2006...................................................................4 2.1 Income Dependencies...............................................................................4 2.2 The Diversity of Local Economies ........................................................10 2.3 The Vulnerability of Local Areas to the Forest Sector .......................18 2.4 Tourism.....................................................................................................21 2.5 Location Quotients..................................................................................23 3. The Employment Impact Ratios for 2006...................................................27 3.1 General Introduction ..............................................................................27 3.2 The Employment Impact Ratios............................................................30 3.3 Applications.............................................................................................36 4. Discussion of Changes 1991 - 1996 – 2001 - 2006......................................43 4.1 Dependencies...........................................................................................43 4.2 Diversity and Forest Vulnerability .......................................................45 4.3 Employment Impact Ratios ...................................................................50 4.4 Shift/Share Analysis...............................................................................51 References...........................................................................................................56 Appendix A – Methodology and Related Issues..........................................57 A.1 Overview.................................................................................................57 A.2 Data Sources ...........................................................................................60 A.3 NAICS Industry Definitions.................................................................61 A.4 Indirect Allocation .................................................................................63 A.5 Tourism ...................................................................................................63 A.6 The Use of Household Spending Data...............................................65 A.7 Estimating After-tax Income ...............................................................66 A.8 Second Order Effects .............................................................................67 Appendix B – Sub-Areas within some of the Local Areas ..........................68 Appendix C – Some Additional Industries ...................................................70 C.1 Disaggregation of the Public Sector.....................................................70 C.2 Employment Impact Ratios for some Additional Industries ...........73 C.3 Major Components of the “Other” Category ....................................80 Page i BC STATS British Columbia Local Area Economic Dependencies - 2006 Appendix D - The Statistics of the 20% Sample............................................81 D.1 Introduction ............................................................................................81 D.2 A Specific Example ................................................................................84 D.3 Summary and Conclusions...................................................................85 Appendix E - Dependency Changes From 1991 to 2006..............................86 Appendix F - Census Components of the 63 Local Areas...........................96 Appendix G – Local Area Map and Names ................................................115 British Columbia Local Area Economic Dependencies - 2006 Preface This report was prepared to provide up-to-date consistent information on the local economies in the rural areas of the province of British Columbia and to help in the estimation of the economic impacts of changes in those local economies. It is the latest in a series of reports that use data from the Canadian Census and other sources. A number of people in BC Stats were particularly helpful in the preparation of this report. These include Chris McIntosh, Paul Gosh, Natalie Work, Pat Bluemel and Don McRae. An early draft of this report was reviewed by interested personnel in BC Stats and their comments helped to shape the final product. However, any errors, incoherence, or other shortcomings that remain are the full responsibility of the author. Page 1 BC STATS British Columbia Local Area Economic Dependencies - 2006 Abstract This report presents economic information about 63 local areas in the province of British Columbia. Specifically, it provides tables and maps that identify and quantify the sources of income that support the local economies in each of these areas. In addition, it presents ratios that can be used to estimate the impacts on employment and income resulting from changes in these sources. The local areas cover the entire province with the exception of the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD). The results in the report rely on an economic base perspective and detailed information from the 2006 Census of Canada, and other sources. Changes in the results during the period 1991 - 1996 - 2001 – 2006 are presented and discussed. Use of the tables in this report for estimating economic impacts is illustrated by a number of examples. Appendices provide additional analysis and information that may be useful for regional studies. Page 2 BC STATS British Columbia Local Area Economic Dependencies - 2006 1. Introduction This report is the latest in a series of reports that have utilized Census and other economic data to focus on local areas throughout the province of British Columbia. This report is based primarily on data resulting from the 2006 Canadian Census. Similar earlier reports were based on results from the 1991 [1]1, 1996 [2] and 2001 [3] Censuses. The fundamental geographical unit used for this study is the Census Subdivision (CSD). There were 836 such areas defined in British Columbia at the time of the 2006 Census; of these 517 were Indian Reserves. The local areas defined in this study are typically aggregates of several CSD’s, often a town and its surrounding “catchment” area. The body of this report identifies and reports on the same 63 local areas as the previous three studies. These local areas are like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in the sense that they cover the entire province without any overlap. Needless to say, particularly in the north, some of these local areas are very large but sparsely populated. The precise components of each local area are tabulated in Appendix F and a map showing their location is found in Appendix G. As in previous studies we have not presented results for most of the GVRD, primarily because some of the methodological assumptions made in this work do not seem appropriate for a major metropolitan area like Vancouver. There are two kinds of results that come out of a study like this, which may be thought of as descriptive and operational. The descriptive measures use the statistics available to describe each community in terms of its dependence on various basic sectors, its diversity, its vulnerability to downturns in the forest sector, and so on. In addition, now that we have four consecutive studies carried out with pretty much the same methodology and local area definitions, we are in a good position to describe and comment on changes and trends in those measures and what they can tell us about the various local economies in British Columbia over the last 15 years. On the other hand, the operational results present numbers for each community that can be used to estimate the impacts of anticipated or proposed changes in the basic sectors. They are presented in this report as an aid to answering “what if…?” questions. In this report some fresh examples of the use of these numbers are presented. 1 Numbers in square brackets denote references that can be found listed on Page 56 of this report. Page 3 BC STATS British Columbia Local Area Economic Dependencies - 2006 This report is organized in the same way as previous efforts – the primary focus is on the results, what they mean, and how to use them. Readers interested in methodological issues, or on how the various data sources were used to arrive at the results reported here, are referred to earlier reports and/or the appendices of this report where some of these issues are discussed in appropriate detail. Chapter 2 presents and discusses the descriptive results as described above. Chapter 3 presents tables of