Home | Visit and Learn | Economy


Economy PDF Print E-mail

The economy of the province remains highly export-oriented and includes the traditional resource-based industries (agriculture, forestry and mineral extraction), a limited but growing manufacturing base, and a growing high-tech sector focusing on industries such as biotechnology, aerospace, and petroleum-based research. As is the case elsewhere, non-industrial sectors of the economy have expanded more than industrial sectors. The prices for primary products fluctuate significantly, but increasing diversification of the economy has served to offset somewhat the downturns in primary prices and sales that occur from time to time.

In most rural communities, agriculture is no longer the major direct employer, and farm mechanization and amalgamation have substantially reduced the demand for farm labour. The number of farms has decreased; average values of farmland have fallen; farm income has shrunk relative to the average income per worker in other sectors; farm debt has risen; and wheat prices have declined. Rural communities in general and farmers in particular are desperately trying to adapt to new institutional arrangements of global restructuring. While the 1990s were kinder to Saskatchewan, particularly because of the emergence of a new economy made possible by agricultural diversification, limited manufacturing growth and the expansion of new technologies especially in Saskatoon and Regina, hundreds of rural communities experienced significant decline and some even became extinct. Saskatchewan enjoys the lowest unemployment rate in Canada.

Excerpt from Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan.



Saskatchewan in the News