Changes in the cultural workforce in 8 CMAs with populations below 200,000
Part 4 of my series: Local trends in the arts, culture, and heritage workforce between 2013 and 2025
Today I offer the fourth instalment in my series of articles analyzing local statistics on workers in arts, culture, heritage, and some sport occupations. The article studies changes between 2013 and 2025 for 8 CMAs with populations under 200,000 (analyzed individually and as a group). The 8 CMAs are: Fredericton, Greater Sudbury, Guelph, Kingston, Moncton, Peterborough, Saint John, and Trois-Rivières. For comparison purposes, I’ll include an analysis of the Canada-wide change between 2013 and 2025.
Three weeks ago, I examined the trends for Canada, the 31 CMAs (as a group), and the 6 largest CMAs: Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa-Gatineau, Toronto, and Vancouver.
Two weeks ago, I examined changes for 7 CMAs with populations between 500,000 and 1 million: Winnipeg, Quebec City, Hamilton, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, London, Halifax, and St. Catharines-Niagara.
Last week, I examined changes for 10 CMAs with populations between 220,000 and 500,000: Abbotsford-Mission, Barrie, Kelowna, Oshawa, Regina, Saskatoon, Sherbrooke, St. John’s, Victoria, and Windsor.
There are 10 other (mostly small) CMAs with unreliable data in a majority of the years in the analysis. I have excluded these 10 CMAs from the analysis: Belleville-Quinte West, Brantford, Chilliwack, Drummondville, Kamloops, Lethbridge, Nanaimo, Red Deer, Saguenay, and Thunder Bay.
These articles are based on publicly available occupation statistics from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). As was the case in my other articles, I have created three-year averages to provide a higher level of statistical reliability and minimize the impact of unusual single year estimates in many CMAs. The data in this article labelled 2025 therefore represent the average for 2023-2025. The earliest data point (labelled 2013) is actually the average for 2011-2013.
Key things to know about the Labour Force Survey
In my opinion, data from the Labour Force Survey are useful but imperfect for analyzing the labour force in the arts, culture, and heritage. I outline many limitations at the end of this article and in even greater detail here.
Because of its relatively small sample size, the Labour Force Survey can only offer reliable local data for a broad category of arts, culture, heritage, and sports workers. The summary data relate to what Statistics Canada calls “occupations in the arts, culture, recreation, and sports, except management”. I will generally call this occupation category “arts, culture, heritage, and sport workers”. Details about the occupation groupings within this category are at the end of this article.
Most of the people in this category (roughly 75%) work in the arts, culture, and heritage (rather than sports and recreation). The category covers approximately 60% of all workers in the arts, culture, and heritage.
The data are available for CMAs, not for municipalities per se.
Given the Labour Force Survey’s limitations, the analysis that follows is relatively simple: I examine whether the number of workers in the selected occupation grouping has increased or decreased over 12 years or so.
26% increase for all of Canada
Between 2013 and 2025, there was a 26% increase in the number of workers in the arts, culture, heritage, and sport in Canada (estimates of 510,000 in 2013 and 641,000 in 2025).
30% increase in 8 small CMAs
1.4 million people, or 3% of Canada’s population, reside in the 8 CMAs that have populations under 200,000.
3% of all Canadian workers in the arts, culture, heritage, and sport (16,600 people) reside in these 8 CMAs, a percentage that is equal to the CMAs’ share of the population.
Between 2013 and 2025, the 30% increase in number of workers in the arts, culture, heritage, and sport in the 8 CMAs is slightly above the Canadian average (26%). There has been a lot of fluctuation in the number of culture and sports workers, as shown in the following graph. This is not too surprising, given the higher error for these smaller population areas. Collectively, in the 8 CMAs, there were 16,600 workers in this occupation grouping in 2013 and 12,800 in 2025.
6 of the 8 small CMAs saw increases in the number of workers in the arts, culture, heritage, and sport. Only 1 had an increase that was significantly higher than the national average (26%).
Details follow for each of the 8 CMAs, from largest to smallest. Note: The percentage changes are calculated from unrounded estimates.