CENTRE WELLINGTON - The Township of Centre Wellington saw a 64.9 per cent labour force and employment rate in 2021, which was four per cent higher than Ontario’s rate, according to the township’s 2022 community profile.
At Thursday’s Centre Wellington economic development committee meeting, a new 2022 community profile was presented to the committee, highlighting the township’s population, education, household and earnings, and employment. All data was sourced from McSweeney and Associates’ Manifold Superdemographics 2021.
The full report can be found here.
Centre Wellington’s employment saw a slight hike from 2016’s data which was 64.4 per cent. The township currently has 17,673 individuals in its labour force, and the median employment income was $44,967. Ontario’s median income was $37,377.
“The labour force participation and employment rate are higher than Ontario’s while the unemployment rate is lower,” stated the community profile report.
“The data suggest that Centre Wellington residents are more likely to be engaged in the labour force and are more likely to find work.”
Of the 64.9 per cent rate, the highest percentage came from the sales and services sector which accounted for 17.9 per cent of Centre Wellington's workforce.
Meanwhile, the lowest percentage rate of employment was in natural resources, agriculture and related production operations which sat at 3.1 per cent.
“I’m on this committee representing agriculture and I know it’s a driving force within this community and it didn’t really translate in this document,” said Janet Harrop, president of Wellington Federation of Agriculture (WFA), during the meeting.
“I’m assuming some of the data was taken from CRA’s T4s in terms of revenues, and a lot of businesses either have a dividend or a drawing structure that don’t have T4s. So, they’re not captured in this data.”
Kevin McPhillips, a representative for McSweeney and Associates, explained that the reality of data in today’s world is that it’s only good with the availability of the data.
“If there isn’t any data available for a sector such as agriculture because our data collector doesn’t have access to or cannot find access to, then that’s going to be a missing gap and that’s just the reality of the data world,” said McPhillips during the meeting.
“Secondly, the Manifold data we use is related to the people living in your community, so it’s not the jobs in your community but rather the jobs that are employed by residents of Centre Wellington. So, if someone comes from outside of Centre Wellington just commuting to work that data is not captured in the Manifold data.”
Harrop further pointed out her disappointment with the data as she sees a significant manufacturing and agricultural component within the township since the sector provides a lot of products for many businesses within Centre Wellington.
George Borovilos, township’s manager of economic development, pointed out that the document is a living document that requires continuous improvements and they need to continuously update the community profile.
Meanwhile, its population grew 10.8 per cent from 2016-21 data – the most of any in the county. In 2016, the township had a 28,191 population while in 2021, it had a population of 31,093 residents.
By 2026, Centre Wellington expects to have a population of 33,633 and in 2031, 35,887 residents.
“I really think this is a missing piece. We missed having something like this for a long time, so it’s really good to have this as a foundational document,” said Mayor Kelly Linton during the meeting.
“We talk a lot about what aspects and competitive advantages we have, so this just shows to those who don’t know Centre Wellington our advantages.”
