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August 02, 2023INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, 2021 (ACTUAL), 2022 (PRELIMINARY) AND 2023 (INTENTIONS) Statistics Canada has recently released Industrial Research and Development (R&D) characteristics, including 2023 intentions, preliminary actuals for 2022 and characteristics of industrial R&D spending/personnel across provinces for 2021. Results from 2014 and beyond are not directly comparable to earlier data.
In 2021, Nova Scotia businesses spent $200 million on research and development, up 15.6% from the previous year. Nova Scotia’s total business enterprise expenditures on R&D accounted for 0.39% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2021, up from 0.37% in the previous year.
Nationally, businesses spent $27.3 billion on R&D, an increase of 15.2% over 2020 spending. Canada’s R&D spending accounted for 1.09% of its GDP in 2021, up from 1.07% in the previous year.
Ontario (1.39%), Quebec (1.30%), and British Columbia (1.11%) have the largest share of their economy in research and development expenditures in 2021.
As a share of GDP, business R&D expenditures in Nova Scotia has been somewhat volatile over the last eight years. The share of industrial R&D in total GDP in Nova Scotia increased from 2014 (0.30%) to 2016 (0.44%) but were on a downward trend from 2016 to 2018 (0.35%) before increasing in 2019 (0.43%) and declining in 2020 (0.37%). The share of industrial R&D in total GDP in Nova Scotia increased to 0.39% in 2021.
Nationally, the share of business R&D in GDP had been hovering around 0.92% from 2014-2019, before increasing as a share of GDP in 2020 to 1.07% and to 1.09% in 2021.
In 2021, R&D personnel accounted for 0.55% of Nova Scotia’s business sector employment, posting the second largest share across the Atlantic provinces.
Nationally, business enterprise R&D personnel was 1.36% of Canada’s total business sector employment in 2021. The largest shares were recorded in Quebec (1.74%), Ontario (1.63%) and British Columbia (1.31%).
Over the last eight years, the share business sector employment that has been business enterprise R&D personnel has generally been on a downward trend with spikes recorded in 2016, 2019 and 2020. The share of Nova Scotia’s R&D personnel peaked at 0.65% in 2016 before declining to 0.43% in 2018 and increasing to 0.59% in 2020 before declining to 0.55% in 2021
In Canada, the share of R&D personnel in business sector employment was previously at its highest at 1.16% in 2015. This ratio declined to 1.01% in 2017 and was stable at 1.12% over 2018 and 2019. In 2020, the R&D personnel share increased to 1.40% as research personnel grew while business sector employment fell amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the R&D personnel share declined to 1.36%.
In 2021, there were 1,777 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs for in-house research and development in Nova Scotia. This was an increase of 2.2% from the previous year. Researchers and research managers (1,334) was the most dominant occupational category among most Nova Scotia’s business enterprise R&D personnel in 2021. The rest of the R&D personnel was divided among research and development technical, administrative and support staff (407), and consultants and contractors (36).
Preliminary estimates show that Canada’s business enterprise R&D spending grew by 3.5% from the previous year to $28,229 million in 2022. National R&D expenditures are expected to have slower growth of 2.4% to $28,915 million in 2023.
Looking at the R&D spending by industry, majority of the R&D spending in Canada was undertaken by businesses in service sectors. The computer systems designs and related services sector had the largest R&D spending ($5,364 million) in 2021. This was followed by research and development: sciences/engineering ($2,769 million) and wholesale sector ($2,560 million).
In 2021, Canadian businesses with revenues higher than $500 million had the largest share of total R&D spending accounting for 38% of total R&D expenditures. This was followed by businesses with revenues between $10 million and $50 million (16%) and revenues between $100 million and $500 million (16%) in 2021.
Source: Statistics Canada,Table 27-10-0333-01 Business enterprise in-house research and development expenditures, by industry group based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), country of control and expenditure types (x 1,000,000); Table 27-10-0334-01 Business enterprise in-house research and development expenditures, by country of control and revenue group (x 1,000,000); Table 27-10-0341-01 Business enterprise in-house research and development characteristics, by industry group based on the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), country of control and provinces and territories; Table 36-10-0222-01 Gross domestic product, expenditure-based, provincial and territorial, annual (x 1,000,000); Table 36-10-0480-01 Labour productivity and related measures by business sector industry and by non-commercial activity consistent with the industry accounts
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