Canada is well ensured that economists call “human capital”. According to one widely quoted report, Canada is one of the most “talented” countries of the world that surpassed the USA, Great Britain, Germany and Norway, among others.
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Canada is blessed with a relatively qualified and well -educated population. On some indicators, we consider the highest -educated country in the world.
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In particular, considering the percentage of the population aged 25 to 64 years with the powers received, a college diploma or a qualified trading qualification-canada is at the top of the package. In 2021, almost six out of 10 Canadians in the age group 25-64 graduated from some form of training or education of after-school education. Among all developed countries, in aggregate, the average value was 41%.
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Well -educated labor
Canada is well ensured that economists call “human capital”. According to one widely quoted report, Canada is one of the most “talented” countries of the world that surpassed the USA, Great Britain, Germany and Norway, among others. This assessment is based on comparing the levels of education, as well as on the ability of the working group to continue constant training, innovation and exchange of knowledge.
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Nevertheless, despite these advantages, Canada loses positions on key indicators of economic well -being. In particular, the global position of Canada slips in two important areas – the cost of economic production (GDP) per person (an indicator of income and standards of life) and performance (assessment of how much economy it produces for each hour of work).
In the case of GDP for each person, Canada published the third lowest growth rate among all advanced industrial countries from 2014 to 2023. As for performance, Canada's results were gloomy compared to the United States and other developed countries of the highest level. Labor productivity in a wide Canadian business sector is less than 70% of the US level; 25 years ago, we were 80% as productive as the United States, and critically that this decrease occurred before the trade failures caused by the global tariffs of President Trump.
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Why Canada, as a rule, is apparently a favorable position in the field of education and skills, apparently, could not lead to a faster growth in GDP for each person and performance?
One of the obvious reasons is the lag of investments.
Investments in business in equipment, machines, advanced technologies, infrastructure and other tangible and intangible assets help workers be productive at their work. Unfortunately, over the past decade, Canadian investments in business (for for the employee) were very lethargic, falling from $ 18,600 in 2014 to $ 14,000 in 2024 (these figures are adjusted to deprive the consequences of inflation). At the same time, investments on one employee were constantly promoted in the USA, which means that American workers (on average) have more tools and equipment at their disposal than Canadian workers.
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In some studies, according to estimates, Canadian enterprises together are currently investing only 55% -60% as much as their American colleagues, measured on the basis of each employee. And this is not only better than ours; Many other jurisdictions of the advanced economy are also ahead of Canada in the growth of investment in business.
Investments in Canada are especially low in the machine and equipment, advanced technologies and intellectual property of the assets, which are important to increase productivity in a modern rapidly changing digital economy.
Time to configure politics
Federal and provincial politicians, including the former Trudeau government, did little to solve a serious and persistent deficit of investment in Canada. With a treud, the priority was to quickly expand the population with the help of unprecedented tributaries of immigrants – a strategy that clearly could not bring improvements in economic well -being.
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Looking into the future, governments at all levels must plunge into a political mixture, which is designed to sharply increase investments in the private sector, if we hope to fully use the strengths provided by the well -formed labor force of Canada.
Jok Finleyon is a senior researcher at the Fraser Institute.
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