Economy
| Labour force | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rate | Thunder Bay | Ontario | Canada |
| Employment | 57.7% | 60.8% | 62.2% |
| Unemployment | 7.6% | 8.9% | 7.7% |
| Participation | 62.4% | 66.8% | 67.4% |
| As of: February 2009 | |||
As the largest city in Northwestern Ontario, Thunder Bay is the region's commercial, administrative and medical centre. Many of the city's largest single employers are in the public sector. The City of Thunder Bay, the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, the Lakehead District School Board and the Government of Ontario each employ over 1,500 people. Bowater Forest Products is the largest private employer, employing over 1,500 people. Other major employers in the forestry sector include AbitibiBowater and Buchanan Forest Products. Bombardier Transportation operates a plant in Thunder Bay which manufactures mass transit vehicles and equipment, employing approximately 800 people.
| Employment by industry, 2006 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Industry | Thunder Bay | Ontario |
| Agriculture and resource-based | 3.6% | 2.9% |
| Construction | 5.4% | 5.9% |
| Manufacturing | 7.7% | 13.9% |
| Wholesale Trade | 2.8% | 4.7% |
| Retail trade | 12.7% | 11.1% |
| Finance and real estate | 4.2% | 6.8% |
| Health care and social services | 15.2% | 9.4% |
| Education services | 8.9% | 6.7% |
| Business services | 16.8% | 19.7% |
| Other services | 22.6% | 18.7% |
Lack of innovation by traditional industries, such as forest products, combined with high labour costs have reduced the industrial base of Thunder Bay by close to 60%. The grain trade has declined because of the loss of grain transportation subsidies and the loss of European markets. The gradual transition from shipping by train and boat to shipping by truck, and the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement have ended Thunder Bay's privileged position as a linchpin in Canadian east-west freight-handling trade. As a result the city has lost its traditional raison d'être as a break-bulk point. However, in recent years shipments through the port of Thunder Bay have stabilized, and remains an important part of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
In an effort to rejuvenate its economy, the city has been actively working to attract quaternary or "knowledge-based" industries, primarily in the fields of molecular medicine and genomics. The city is home to the western campus of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, the first medical school to open in Canada in a generation.
Read more about this topic: Thunder Bay
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“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“War. Fighting. Men ... every man in the whole realm is in the army.... Every man in uniform ... An economy entirely geared to war ... but there is not much war ... hardly any fighting ... yet every man a soldier from birth till death ... Men ... all men for fighting ... but no war, no wars to fight ... what is it, what does it mean?””
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)