Nearly 274,000 Canadians had green jobs in 2016, according to new estimates released by the federal government's statistical agency.
With an average annual salary of about $92,000, including benefits, the 274,000 Canadians working in green jobs are earning a lot more than the average worker, who makes about $59,000, Statistics Canada reported this week.
The agency tallied all jobs related to environmental and clean technology for the year, coming up with a figure of 1.5 percent of the total jobs in the economy, according to the report.
The numbers also show that employment in the environmental and clean tech sector has grown by 4.5 percent since 2007, about half of the growth in the rest of the economy, Statistics Canada said.
While oil and gas companies have been aggressively promoting the need for new pipelines to support growth in the Alberta oilsands, Statistics Canada says the oilsands represent just two percent of the Canadian economy and environmental and clean technology activities accounted for about 3.1 percent, or $59.3 billion, of Canadian gross domestic product in 2016.
In terms of job numbers, Canada's oil and gas main oil and gas industry lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, has estimated that the oilsands sector in Western Canada accounted for 151,000 direct jobs in 2015.
But there is also a crossover between green jobs and some of those jobs in the oilsands sector. Statistics Canada told National Observer that its estimate of 274,000 clean tech and environmental jobs included some oilsands jobs that are related to reducing environmental impacts.
The Trudeau government says it can use the new analysis by Statistics Canada to start measuring how green policies could potentially benefit the economy. Canada is among the first countries to measure the impact of clean tech and environmental goods and services on a national level, the government says.
