By the numbers

2016 CENSUS

Other key facts from the 2016 census:

99 per cent of Hamilton workers speak English most often at work, compared to 97 per cent of all Ontario workers. For those workplaces where English is not spoken most often in Hamilton, 220 people say they use Mandarin most frequently at work, 165 use Cantonese, 160 use Portuguese, 160 use Spanish and 120 use Vietnamese most frequently at work.

There are 545 adults between the ages of 25 and 64 in the area bounded by Sherman Avenue North / harbourfront / Ottawa Street North / rail line north of Barton Street — only 15 of them have a university bachelor’s degree or higher.

Hamilton’s unemployment rate in 2016 was seven per cent, below Ontario’s rate of 7.4 per cent. The city’s unemployment rate was 6.5 per cent in 2006.

At a neighbourhood level, the highest unemployment rate was 16.2 per cent in the area bounded by Sherman Avenue North / harbourfront / Ottawa Street North / rail line north of Barton Street.

The lowest unemployment rate was 2.4 per cent in the neighbourhood bounded by Governor’s Road / Brant County border / Jerseyville Road / Alberton Road / Garner Road / Martin Road / Binkley Road.

There’s a notable difference in unemployment rates between men and women in Hamilton. The rate for men was 7.5 per cent in 2016 compared to 6.5 per cent for women. The 38 census tracts with the highest unemployment rates are all located in the former City of Hamilton, and 32 of the 38 are in the lower city. Fewer workers in Hamilton work from home compared to the rest of Ontario. About six per cent of workers in the city work from home compared to 7.3 per cent across Ontario. Nearly 10 per cent of Hamilton workers say they’re regularly commuting to work between 5 and 6 a.m. 46 per cent of Flamborough workers commute to jobs outside the city.

More than 15 per cent of the post-secondary degrees in Hamilton were obtained in the health professions, compared to just over 12 per cent elsewhere in Ontario.

Steve Buist is an investigative reporter and feature writer. He has won three National Newspaper Awards, been named Canada's Investigative Journalist of the Year three times and Ontario's Journalist of the Year five times. He created the census project and analyzed the data.

Mark Borthwick is a fourth-year McMaster University environmental science student with expertise in geographic information systems and mapping. He created the maps for the census project.