Regional Overview

Economic Structure

Distribution of Jobs, by Industry, 2000
Southern Ontario

Click on graphic to enlarge

Because definitions vary across the data sources used (Western New York information comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis through its Regional Economic Information System, which counts all civilian and military jobs, including government, agriculture and the self-employed. Southern Ontario figures come from labor force surveys conducted by Human Resources Development Canada) data on the two parts of the Buffalo Niagara economy are not strictly comparable. That said, the overall picture shows that while manufacturing remains significant in both the Canadian and U.S. parts of the region, service employment now outnumbers manufacturing jobs, while the government and trade sectors (wholesale and retail combined) are also key components of the regional economy (see charts, Distribution of Jobs, by Industry, 2000, Southern Ontario and Western New York).

Distribution of Jobs, by Industry, 2000
Western New York Click on graphic to enlarge As of 2000, the service sector provided the regional economy's largest employment base. Service sector workers comprise over 42% of the 538,500 workers in the Southern Ontario CMAs and 33% of the 721,700 workers in Western New York. Apparent pronounced differences in government employment are largely an artifact of definitional differences, with the U.S. system counting public school teachers, hospital workers, military and state and local government officials and workers as part of the government sector, and the Canadian system counting education and health employees as part of the service sector.

A notable difference in economic structure is the larger share played by manufacturing in Southern Ontario (20% of jobs) than in Western New York (14%). That difference is accounted for by trade positions being more prominent in the Western New York versus Southern Ontario economies, 22% to 16%. Shares of regional employment in construction, finance/insurance/real estate, and transportation/utilities sectors are similar in both parts of the region.

New data on union membership, expected in 2003, are anticipated to show that the Buffalo Niagara region remains among the highest in percentage of workers unionized. Data for the Buffalo-Niagara Falls Metropolitan Area for 1988 to 1998 find a 1998 union membership rate of nearly 27%, down from just over 33% in 1988 (see chart, Union Membership, Buffalo-Niagara Falls Metro Area). The 1998 level is significantly higher than the comparable national union membership rate of 14%, which is down from 20% in 1983.

Union Membership,
Buffalo-Niagara Falls Metro Area Click on graphic to enlarge At 71% of total public sector employees, the metropolitan area's government workers are highly unionized. This rate is down slightly from 75% a decade earlier, and nearly double the national public sector unionization rate of approximately 38%. About 17% of the area's private sector workforce are union members, which is likewise down from the 1988 level (24%), and significantly higher than the national rate of 9.5%. Within the local private sector, manufacturing workers have a unionization rate of between 37% and 38%, over twice that of the 16% unionization rate of manufacturing workers nationwide. Regional unionization rates of around 12% for local private nonmanufacturing workers are likewise down, from close to 17% in 1988, but nonetheless about 50% higher than the comparable national level of 8%.