[Report] People First: A Portrait of Canada’s Nonprofit Workforce

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Recently updated data released by Statistics Canada provide key insights into the size and key characteristics of the nonprofit workforce and how it compares to the total Canadian workforce.

• Collectively nonprofits employ 2.5 million people, making the nonprofit sector the largest employer in Canada. Nonprofit employment is 70% larger than construction, 60% larger than manufacturing and 20% larger than retail trade, the three largest for-profit industries.
• Two thirds of nonprofit employees work in the hospitals, universities and colleges that make up the government nonprofit sub-sector. About a quarter work in community nonprofits and one in twelve in business nonprofits.
• Compared to other workers, nonprofit employees are more likely to be women (70% vs. 48% of all employees), to have higher levels of formal education (48% have a university degree vs. 34% of all employees) and to be racialized (33% vs. 29%). Nonprofit employees are as likely as other workers to have previously immigrated to Canada (27% of both groups).
• In spite of generally higher levels of formal education, nonprofit workers are paid significantly less than workers in the for-profit and government sectors. The average annual salary for a nonprofit worker is 13% lower than the average salary for all Canadian employees. The gap in average salaries is a whopping 31% for community nonprofit workers.
• Most of the nonprofit salary gap is driven by paying women less. The average salary for a woman working for a nonprofit is 18% lower than the average Canadian salary while the average salary for men is just 3% less. About four fifths of the gap in average salaries for women is due to lower hourly wages, as opposed to working fewer hours.
• Average salaries for racialized nonprofit workers are about 12% lower than non-racialized nonprofit workers. While this gap is smaller than in other parts of the economy, it layers on top of the already significant structural nonprofit salary gap. The net effect is that the average salary for racialized nonprofit employees is about a fifth less than that of the typical Canadian worker.
• While average salaries for nonprofit workers who were born abroad are about the same as the salaries of Canadian-born nonprofit workers, this is mainly driven by compensation patterns in government nonprofits. Average salaries for internationally-born workers in community nonprofits are about 5% less and business nonprofits 3% less than salaries of Canadian-born nonprofit workers.

Overall, these data clearly show that the nonprofit workforce has a significantly different composition than the overall Canadian workforce. They also reflect a sector grappling with a combination of structurally lower wages, amplified by significant internal compensation inequities. Changing this will require a combination of funding changes and leadership shifts, supporting decent work and broader adoption of anti-racism/anti-oppression practices.