The name is absent

69

Aboriginal percentage contribution in the increase of the total labour force would be 7.39 per
cent and the share of Aboriginal Canadians in total labour force in 2017 would be 3.50 per cent.

Table 17: Summary of Aboriginal Labour Force (15-64) Projections

Source: Appendix Table 23

The percentage contribution of the Aboriginal population to the change in the labour
force is even more considerable when we consider only the labour force aged 15-64 (Table 17).
In this case, under Scenario 3, Aboriginals are expected to contribute 12.97 per cent to the
change in the labour force between 2001 and 2017 (Table 16).²⁸ Even if participation rates of
Aboriginals do not change (Scenario 1) this figure is 7.18 per cent. The increase is larger for the
population aged 15-64 because the proportion of the non-Aboriginal population aged 65 and over
is expected to grow much more rapidly than that of the Aboriginal population aged 65 and over.

It is important to note that even without any change to the participation rate of Aboriginal
Canadians, the proportion of the labour force that is Identity Aboriginal is projected to rise. This
is an important finding because it shows that the Aboriginal population will become increasingly
important to the Canadian economy. This is especially true for the population 15 to 64 because
the Aboriginal population is younger than the non-Aboriginal population. For the population 15
and over, the Canadian definition of the working age population, assuming Aboriginal
participation rates do not change from the rates in 2001, Aboriginals are projected to make up
3.23 per cent of the labour force in 2017. This represents a 0.5 percentage point increase from the
2.73 per cent in 2001. For the population 15 to 64, however, the difference is slightly greater.
Without a change in their participation rates, Aboriginals are projected to represent 3.16 per cent
of the labour force in 2017, up from 2.61 per cent in 2001.

Of the Aboriginal identity groups, the North American Indians have the lowest
participation rates at 57 per cent in 2001. For this reason and because they are the identity group
with the largest population, 713,100 people in 2001 (Statistics Canada - Aboriginal Population
Projections), if the North American Indian population were to achieve parity with the non-
Aboriginal population there would be a larger impact to the labour force than a similar change in
other identity groups. If participation rate parity was achieved by 2017, 222,569 additional

²⁸ There appears to be an inconsistency between tables 15 and 16 in that they indicate that the Aboriginal labour
force under scenario 3 would be larger in the 15-64 subset than it is for the 15 and older subset. This is because the
tables were independently constructed to show the situation when the rate for the Aboriginal community in 2017
reaches the level of non-Aboriginals in 2001. The general population had a significantly higher proportion of the
population aged 64 and over in 2001 than the Aboriginal community is projected to have in 2017 (16.3 per cent
compared to 9.1). As our projections do not adjust for the different age structures, this creates inconsistencies. Finer
projections, taking into account the difference in age structure, would lead to larger estimates for the potential
contribution of Aboriginal Canadians to the total increase in labour force over the 2001-2017 period. In this context,
our projections represent lower-bound estimates of the potential contribution of Aboriginal Canadians.

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