Trade and gender: The Canada-Finland story

Two-way Canadian merchandise trade with Finland averaged $2 billion annually during 2018 and 2019. This was up 28.3% compared to 2016 — the last full year before preferential tariff treatment under CETA was put into force in 2017.

In 2019, Canada exported $700 million in goods to Finland and imported $1,064 million worth of goods.

In Canada, 2,619 jobs are directly or indirectly supported by merchandise exports to Finland. Women hold 745 of these jobs.

Top 5 industries

Jobs held by women that are directly or indirectly supported by goods exports to Finland:

• Finance and insurance: 78
• Wholesale trade: 76
• Transportation equipment manufacturing: 67
• Mining (except oil and gas extraction): 62
• Professional, scientific and technical services: 60

The number of Canadian businesses exporting goods to the Finland in 2019 was 696, while the number of Canadian businesses importing goods from the Finland was 2,552.

Women-owned and equally owned businesses in 2017:

• Export value: 8.7%
• Import value: 11.6%
• Exporters: 18.1%
• Importers: 20.7%

Men-owned businesses in 2017:

• Export value: 91.3%
• Import value: 88.4%
• Exporters: 81.9%
• Importers: 79.3%

Women-owned and equally owned Canadian businesses make up a larger portion of imports than exports, by both number of importers and value.

Notes: Women-, men- and equally owned businesses refer to Canadian-controlled private corporations. The reported fractions are of those for which data on gender of ownership are available.

Direct jobs: Initial trade transactions support jobs directly.

Indirect Jobs: Additional jobs supported indirectly due to an increase in business-to-business (e.g. supply chain) transactions that result from the initial trade.

Sources: Statistics Canada, Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database 2017, Trade by Exporter Characteristics 2017, Trade by Importer Characteristics 2017 and Canadian Merchandise Trade Database 2019.