Aboriginal Co-operatives in Canada - Centre for the Study of Co ...

6.2 EmploymentFigure 6.2 shows the numberFigure 6.2 Total Employees -NWT Vsof people employed byNWT Aboriginal Co-opsAboriginal co-ops in NWT.30,000700613The data compiled by the CooperativesSecretariat does not58824,79154060025,00021,51522,289 23,446573 25,02150020,000separate between Aboriginaland non-Aboriginalemployees. We could40940015,00030010,000however extrapolate the200proportion of Aboriginal5,000100workers from population data00gathered through the 19911993 1994 1995Years1996 1997census (Statistics Canada) andreported in the “BasicNWT Employees Total Co-op EmployeesDepartmental Data –1997” of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development 25 .According to these data, about 53% of the population with income in NWT are of Aboriginaldescent. If this percent is valid for Aboriginal co-ops, then only about half of the workers wouldbe of native origin. Nonetheless, the big majority (about 80%) of the co-ops are located either inrural or remote areas, where the non-Aboriginal population is almost non-existent. Therefore, wewould expect the proportion of Aboriginal employees in co-ops to be much more than 53%.NWTNWT Aboriginal Co-opsThere was a large increase in the number of employees from 1993 to 1994, due to a reportingproblem in 1993 that underestimated the number of workers by about 100. However, an increasein output (sales) of NWT co-ops in 1994 could account for some of the increase.When compared to employment growth in NWT, co-ops have hired on average 12% moreworkers each year, while employment in the NWT economy increased only 3.9% each year onaverage, during the 1993 − 1997 period. Even if 1993 and 1994 are removed (because of the dataproblems noted above), employment growth in co-ops is still higher than in the NWT in general(6.6% versus 3.3%) during the remaining period (1995 to 1997).25 The North, in Basic Departmental Data 1997 – Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,Information Management Branch, March 1998.107