Determinants Of Health

Employment

Key Messages
Simcoe County
District of Muskoka
Technical Notes
Further Reading

It should be noted that the 2021 Census was conducted in May of 2021, during the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic which resulted in an elevated level of precarious employment and unemployment compared to pre-pandemic conditions. Information from other sources suggests that the labour market has continued to recover since the Census day, and that by the summer of 2022 there was a record low unemployment rate across for Canada as a whole (StatsCan, 2022). Employment and unemployment information in this page should be interpreted with this in mind.

Key Messages

According to 2021 Census data, 308,215 (62.3%) Simcoe Muskoka residents 15 years of age and older were part of the labour force. Of the individuals in the labour force, 11.7% (or 36,180) were unemployed. In comparison, the unemployment rate in Ontario in 2021 was a higher at 12.2% (or 906,310 unemployed).
Within Simcoe Muskoka, the number of people in the labour force who were unemployed increased by 80.8% between 2016 and 2021. Meanwhile, in the same time period, the number of people in the labour force unemployed increased by 71.2% in Ontario.
There were more women+ (19,690 or 13.4%) who were unemployed than men+ (16,480 or 10.2%) in Simcoe Muskoka in 2021. This is a change from 2016, where 9,540 women+ (7.0%) and 10,470 men+ (7.0%) were unemployed.

Unemployment Rate Simcoe Muskoka and Ontario

Simcoe County

In Simcoe County, 11.8% (or 32,650 people) of the population in the labour force aged 15 years and over were unemployed in 2021. This is nearly double (an 83.1% increase) from the 6.9% (or 17,835 people) of the population in 2016.
More than half of the Census subdivisions within Simcoe County had a lower unemployment rate than Ontario.
The highest unemployment rates in Simcoe County were in Orillia (15.2% or 2,355 people), Ramara (14.1% or 730 people), and Wasaga Beach (13.9% or 1,415 people).

Simcoe Highest Unemployment Rate

Simcoe county lowest unemployment rate

District of Muskoka

In the District of Muskoka, 10.8% (or 3,530 people) of the population in the labour force aged 15 years and over were unemployed in 2021. This represents 1.6 times as many people unemployed (a 62.3% increase) from the 7.1% (or 2,175 people) of the population in 2016.
All Census subdivisions within the District of Muskoka had a lower unemployment rate than Ontario.
The highest unemployment rates in the District of Muskoka were in Huntsville (12.0% or 1,280 people), Lake of Bays (10.8% or 205 people), and Gravenhurst (10.6% or 620 people).

Muskoka Unemployment Rate

Additional analysis of employment data by immigrant status, visible minority status, Francophone status, income, and age will be updated as it becomes available.

Technical Notes

In 2021, the Census included a question on gender for the first time, rather than solely sex. The sex variable in census years prior to 2021 and the two-category gender variable in the 2021 Census are included together in this analysis. Although sex and gender refer to two different concepts, the introduction of gender is not expected to have a significant impact on data analysis and historical comparability, given the small size of the transgender and non-binary populations (Statistics Canada, 2022).

Given that the non-binary population is small, data aggregation to a two-category gender variable is sometimes necessary to protect the confidentiality of responses provided. In these cases, people in the category “non-binary persons” are distributed in the other two gender categories and are denoted by the “+” symbol as women+ or men+ (Statistics Canada, 2022).

Census subdivision (CSD) generally refers to municipalities (e.g. Clearview Township) as well as areas considered equivalent to municipalities for reporting census data, such as First Nations reserves (e.g. Chippewas of Rama First Nation).

Local First Nation communities are included in the overall population totals for Census divisions (Simcoe County and the District of Muskoka). In regard to reporting of data at the Census subdivision-level, SMDHU is in the process of initiating conversations with local First Nation communities to determine which communities, and to what detail, data will be displayed on our HealthSTATS pages. As these conversations are had and decisions are made, updates may occur to this page.