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January 30, 2018HEAD OFFICES IN CANADA, 2016 Statistics Canada reports on the number of and employment in head office locations across Canada. Head offices include establishments and locations primarily engaged in providing managemenr and/or administrative support services to affiliated establishments. They activities include corporate functions such as strategic organizational planing, communications, tax planning, legal services, marketing, finance, human resource management and information technology services.
The number of head offices in Canada has declined slightly in 2016 to 2,728 from (2,736 in 2015). Of these, the largest number are found in Canada's larger urban provinces - Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta. In particular, these head offices are more concentrated in larger cities.
There are fewer head office locations in the Atlantic provinces as well as in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Nova Scotia's head office count was 70 in 2016, the same level as was reported in 2014 and 2015. Over time, most provinces report stable or small declines in the number of head offices.
The number of head office employees was up slightly in 2016 to 227,416 in Canada. Nova Scotia accounted for 2,758 of these employees. As with locations, larger urban provinces (and the larger urban centres within them) account for the bulk of head office employment in Canada.
Note: totals for head office employment and locations in Quebec and Ontario include the Ottawa/Gatineau area that straddles the border between these provinces. There were 66 head office locations in Ottawa/Gatineau in 2016 with 7,398 head office employees.
Larger and more urban provinces also report more head office employees per location - reaching as high as 139.5 per location in Calgary. British Columbia is the exception to this, with an average of only 57.3 head office employees per location. Nova Scotia's head office locations report an average of 39.4 head office employees each - only Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and the Territories report fewer head office employees per location.
Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM table 528-0002
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