Productivity trends in the gold mining industry in Canada

The report also finds evidence that the gold mining industry in Canada was not in good health towards the end of the 1970s, despite the record gold prices of this period. [...] In studying these productivity drivers for the case of the Canadian gold mining industry, the report first reviews the salient characteristics of the industry. [...] Some interesting observations are the following: • the gold mining industry accounted for 0.15 per cent of total economy output in Canada in 2000, and 0.05 per cent of employment; • in 2001 there were 35 gold mines in Canada, down from 70 in 1989, and distributed across six provinces and the three territories; • in 2000, Canada was the fourth largest producer of gold in the world with about 5.8 pe [...] The level of output per hour in the Canadian gold mining industry was above that of the total economy for the entire 1961-2000 period, but exceeded the total economy average to a much larger degree in 2000 than in the 1960s and 1970s, owing to the strong productivity growth of the 1980s and 1990s. [...] The authors suggest that rising capital accumulation in the face of low demand is in fact evidence of an expected boom in demand for raw commodities, and so that the rebound in capital accumulation in metal mining in the 1980s would eventually lead to expanding output and a resumption of the strong productivity growth of the pre-1970s period.