The Impact of the Oil Boom on Canada’s Labour Productivity Performance

• Main Authors: Andrew Sharpe, Bert Wasl
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.663.149; http://csls.ca/ipm/27/27-csls.pdf

The objective of this article is to evaluate the impact of the oil and gas industry on labour productivity growth in Canada since 2000 through an exploration of the various channels, both direct and indirect, by which the oil and gas sector affects aggregate productivity. The article sheds light on the paradoxical lack of a direct negative contribution of the oil and gas sector to aggregate labour productivity growth despite the very large fall in productivity experienced by the sector. It highlights the divergent productivity growth paths for the oil and gas sectors in Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador, which drove the aggregate productivity performance of these two provinces. The article also discusses how developments in the oil and gas industry, notably the increase in the price and production of petroleum, have affected productivity growth in other parts of the economy. OIL AND GAS EXTRACTION IS ONE of Canada’s most important, and controversial, industries. In 2010, it represented 4.8 per cent of nominal GDP, up from 3.0 per cent in 2000, and it