Innovation capabilities : Comparing science and engineering employment in Canadian and U.S. cities

The Canadian Economy in Transition Research Paper Series The Canadian Economy in Transition is a series of new analytical reports that investigate the dynamics of industrial change in the Canadian economy. [...] The level of uncertainty will depend on several factors: the nature of the functional form used in the multivariate analysis; the type of econometric technique employed; the appropriateness of the statistical assumptions embedded in the model or technique; the comprehensiveness of the variables included in the analysis; and the accuracy of the data that are utilized. [...] Hence, it is necessary to compare the performance of Canadian cities to U. S. cities.8 To this end, this paper provides an evaluation of the relative strength of employment in science- and engineering-based occupations in cities across Canada and the United States. [...] This is followed by a brief overview of how the Canadian and U. S. labour forces compare in terms of S&E employment in the 1980 and 1981 period and the 2000 and 2001 period (Section 3). [...] In 1980 and 1981, their share of employment in S&E occupations was just behind that of U. S. cities and by 2000 and 2001 the S&E employment share in Canadian cities was above that of U. S. cities.