Since 2019, Canada’s digital sector has outperformed the rest of the national economy. The output of the information and communications sector has grown by 21%, compared to 5% for the economy as a whole. Data processing was up by 52% and computer systems design up by 39%.
Within the digital economy, mobile application development and support is a particularly important sector. Apps are no longer just about playing games or scrolling through social networks. Instead, people are using apps to connect with their health care providers, interact with their cars, and for banking and shopping. At the same time, mobile apps have become increasingly important to all sorts of businesses — apps to track trucks, to monitor energy systems and forestry operations. Moreover, artificial intelligence, low latency, and high bandwidth 5G connections, virtual/ mixed reality, Intensive data processing, and on-device machine learning will give rise to entire new categories of mobile applications.
All of this app development and support is a potent source of new jobs. In this paper we estimate 385,000 App Economy jobs for Canada, as of April 2024, up 47% since 2018. None of these jobs existed 16 years ago, when Apple first opened the App Store on July 10, 2008. Android Market (which later became Google Play) was announced by Google shortly after. These app stores created a new route through which software developers could write programs for smartphones. These mobile applications— called “apps” — could then be distributed to the rapidly growing number of smartphone users around the world.
Moreover, app development and the app stores are a key route by which young people can develop tech skills and become an integral part of the global digital economy.
In addition to estimating the number of jobs in Canada’s App Economy, this paper also estimates the size of the iOS and Android ecosystems. We compare Canada’s App Economy with other industrialized countries. Finally, we also give some examples of App Economy jobs, with special attention to the geographic and industrial diversity of the App Economy.
