Translation Services in Calgary – Economic Profile
The largest city in Alberta, Canada’s richest province, Calgary has been experiencing an economic boom in recent years due to its abundant natural resources, especially oil and gas. Big companies such as BP, EnCana, Imperial Oil, Petro-Canada, Shell Canada, Suncor Energy, and TransCanada, make the city home to 87% of Canada's oil and natural gas producers and 66% of coal producers.
According to Statistic Canada, its economy ranks first in Canada, with an estimated Real GDP growth rate of 6.9% in 2006 and 4.2% in 2007, and will continue growing in the next few years. As a result of fast growing economy, Calgary has the lowest unemployment rate (3.2%) in Canada, and is extremely short of workers. So the city tries its best to attract skilled professionals, for example with signing bonuses. In addition, many foreign petroleum companies are looking for cooperation opportunities with Calgary, so linguistics services are in high demand in the city, and have become one of the fast growing businesses.
In addition to the oil and gas industry, agriculture, tourism, and high-tech business also contribute to Calgary’s fast economic growth. The city is also famous for winter sports and ecotourism because of its unique location, only approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies, Canada’s most well-known mountains. In 1988, Calgary became the first Canadian city to host the Olympic Winter Games. In 2007, it was ranked the World's Cleanest City by Mercer Quality of Living in a survey published by Forbes Magazine.
Among the city’s 1,019,942 population, 79 per cent of the population is of European descent. Another 2.3% of the population is Aboriginal. Other visible minority group includes Chinese, South Asian, Black Canadian, and Latin American.
Calgary is the site of five major public post-secondary institutions, the University of Calgary, Mount Royal College, SAIT Polytechnic, Bow Valley College, Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD).
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