New Ford Edges sit on a production line as Ford Motor Company celebrates the global production start of the 2015 Ford Edge at the Ford Assembly Plant in Oakville, Ont., on Thursday, February 26, 2015. The automobile and auto parts manufacturing industry remains a key driver of Canada's economy. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
August 03, 2017 - 1:50 PM
OTTAWA - The automobile and auto parts manufacturing industry remains a key driver of Canada's economy. Here's a look at the numbers, taken from a report published in April by McMaster University's Automotive Policy Research Centre:
— An average of 2.4 million vehicles were built annually in Canada over the past five years.
— The automotive industry directly employed 140,404 Canadians in 2016, an increase of almost 15,000 since 2012.
— Three Ontario auto assembly plants — Ford in Oakville, Toyota in Cambridge and Fiat Chrysler in Windsor — are among the six biggest employers in manufacturing and resource extraction in Canada. Fiat Chrysler's Windsor plant is the largest manufacturing workplace, with more than 6,000 employees.
— Canadian-owned automotive parts manufacturers employ 51,923 people — more than half of all employment in this sector globally.
And according to the U.S.-based Observatory of Economic Complexity:
— Vehicles were Canada's second largest export, right behind crude petroleum, in 2015. They accounted for $44.9 billion worth of exports (11.5 per cent of a total $389 billion in exports).
— Vehicles were also Canada's No. 1 import — $26.2 billion worth.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2017