Center Wellington recorded a labor force and employment rate of 64.9%, a slight local increase from 2016 and higher than Ontario’s employment rate in 2021
CENTER WELLINGTON – The Township of Center Wellington recorded a labor force and employment rate of 64.9 per cent in 2021, 4 per cent higher than Ontario’s rate, according to the township’s 2022 Community Profile.
At Thursday’s Wellington Center Economic Development Committee meeting, a new 2022 community profile was presented to the committee, highlighting the township’s population, education, household and income, as well as employment . All data from McSweeney and Associates’ Manifold Superdemographics 2021.
The full report is available here.
Wellington Center employment was up slightly from 2016 data of 64.4%. The township currently has 17,673 people in its labor force and the median employment income was $44,967. Ontario’s median income was $37,377.
“Labour force participation and employment rates are higher than in Ontario, while the unemployment rate is lower,” the community profile report says.
“The data suggests Wellington Center residents are more likely to be engaged in the labor force and are more likely to find work.”
Of the 64.9% rate, the highest percentage came from the sales and service sector, which made up 17.9% of the Wellington Center workforce.
Meanwhile, the lowest percentage employment rate was in natural resources, agriculture and related production operations, which stood at 3.1%.
“I’m on this committee representing agriculture and I know that’s a driving force within this community and that hasn’t really translated into this document,” said Janet Harrop, president of the Wellington Federation. of Agriculture (WFA), during the meeting.
“I guess some of the data was taken from the CRA T4s in terms of revenue, and many companies have either a dividend or drawdown structure that don’t have a T4. So they are not captured in this data.
Kevin McPhillips, a representative from McSweeney and Associates, explained that the reality of data in today’s world is that it is only good with the availability of data.
“If there is no data available for a sector such as agriculture because our data collector does not have access to it or cannot access it, then it will be a missing gap and that is just the reality of the data world,” McPhillips said during the meeting.
“Secondly, the Manifold data we use relates to people living in your community, so it is not the jobs in your community but rather the jobs that are employed by Wellington Center residents. So if someone is coming from outside the Wellington Center to get to work, that data is not captured in the data collector.
Harrop further highlighted her disappointment with the data as she sees a significant manufacturing and agricultural component in the township since the sector supplies a lot of products to many businesses in Center Wellington.
George Borovilos, director of economic development for the township, pointed out that the document is a living document that requires continuous improvement and that it must continually update the profile of the community.
Meanwhile, its population is up 10.8% from 2016-21 data – the largest of any in the county. In 2016, the township had a population of 28,191 while in 2021, it had a population of 31,093.
By 2026 Wellington Center expects to have a population of 33,633 and by 2031, 35,887 residents.
“I really think it’s a missing piece. We missed having something like this for a long time, so it’s really good to have this as a baseline document,” Mayor Kelly Linton said during the meeting.
“We talk a lot about the competitive aspects and advantages that we have, so it just shows those who don’t know the Wellington Center our advantages.”