FACTORS AND CORRELATES OF EMPLOYMENT GROWTH IN THE CANADIAN URBAN SYSTEM, 1971-1991

The objective of this paper is to examine a number of hypotheses conce rning the factors or correlates of employment growth in the Canadian u rban system-a set of 152 urban areas having populations of more than t en thousand inhabitants which comprises 77.4 percent of the national p opulation. Do observed patterns of sectoral employment growth obey som e sort of underlying logic? More specifically, do the rates of employm ent growth that are found in individual urban areas vary significantly according to one or more of the following attributes of an urban area : a) the region in which it is located; b) its population size; c) its relative proximity to a major metropolitan area; d) its firm size str ucture e) the level of diversity of its economic structure; and f) its socioeconomic characteristics? While approaches involving a, e and f yield promising results, it is clear that there are few immutable laws that permit one to predict where employment growth will occur within the urban system. Perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of the a nalyses conducted involves the instability of the results from one dec ade to another; one decade's category of winners is often the other de cade's category of losers.