News
Fewer employees working in the agricultural sector in 2021, report shows

April 17, 2023 – According to a recent Statistics Canada report, there were 276,977 employees in the agriculture sector in 2021, down 0.6% from 2020.

Almost half of all agricultural workers were employed by the horticulture industry in 2021, led by greenhouse, nursery, and floriculture production (up 2.1 per cent to 61,015), vegetable and melon ( down 3.1 per cent to 35,028) and fruit and tree nut ( up 0.7 per cent to 31,037) farms.

Almost half (49.9 per cent) of all employees in the agriculture sector in 2021 were seasonal employees. Over one-fifth of all seasonal employees, you worked at greenhouse, nursery, and floriculture operations (21.9 per cent).

Farms in Ontario hired the most employees (79,382) in 2021, down 0.6 per cent from a year earlier. Quebec followed with 66,424 employees in 2021, 1.5 per cent fewer compared with a year earlier.