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• Tourism industries in the Human Resource Module (HRM) include five industry groups which are defined as follows: transportation, accommodation, food and beverage services, recreation and entertainment and travel services. Generally speaking, an industry is considered a tourism industry if it would cease to exist, or continue to exist only at a significantly reduced level of activity, as a direct result of the absence of tourism.

• The HRM provides the following three main human resource statistics for the tourism sector as a whole and for each tourism industry group: jobs, hours and compensation. These statistics are available by gender, work status, by age group, by immigrant status and by occupation.

• All statistics provided by the HRM are related to production in tourism industries. For example, statistics concerning jobs are about the number of jobs required to produce commodities in tourism industries whether the commodities are consumed by visitors or non-visitors, that is, local residents.

• With this update, it was possible to produce annual estimates from 1997 up to and including 2009 for Canada over a 13 year period. This constitutes an improvement in timeliness of data production. The data can now be published six months after the reference period.

• In 2009, the tourism sector in Canada accounted for 1.6 million jobs, that is, 9.4% of all jobs in Canada. In 1997, the tourism sector accounted for a larger proportion, 9.9% of all jobs. Jobs in tourism declined twice in the period covered: they dropped 1.7% (27,000) in 2005 and fell 0.6% (10,000 jobs) in 2009.

• In 2009, the food and beverage services industry group was the largest employer among tourism industries with more than 50% of all tourism jobs (853,000 jobs). The second largest employer was recreation and entertainment with 274,000 jobs, followed by accommodation with 222,000 jobs. The transportation industry group was responsible for 214,000 jobs, while travel services provided 45,000 jobs.

• Working hours were shorter in tourism industries in Canada compared to jobs economy-wide. The shorter work week is explained by the higher proportion of part-time jobs in tourism.

• From 1997 to 2009, hourly compensation was always lower in the tourism sector than economy-wide in Canada, but the gap widened, particularly in 2003.

• Food-counter attendants and kitchen helpers and related occupations were the single largest occupation in the tourism sector with 245,000 jobs. Almost all of these jobs (224,000) were in the food and beverage services industry group. In the accommodation industry group, the most prevalent occupation was light duty cleaners with 45,000 jobs. Bus drivers and subway and other transit operators were the main occupation in other transportation industries with 44,000 jobs, while program leaders and instructors in recreation, sport and fitness were the most common occupation in recreation and entertainment with 34,000 jobs. Travel counsellors were the main occupation in travel services, but accounted for only 21,000 jobs.

• Two tourism industry groups in Canada had a notably older workforce: 62% of employees in other transportation and 43% of employees in travel services were aged 45 years and over.

• On an hourly basis, immigrants were paid less than non-immigrants in the tourism sector, but on annual basis, immigrants earned more ($29,337 for immigrants versus $25,572 for non-immigrants) because they worked more hours.