The rise of the "boss economy"

Canada is registering an extraordinary business statistic: management is the fastest-growing occupation in the country, with more than half a million new manager jobs being created since just 2021. This represents a 33% increase over a period when non-management jobs grew by just 8%. Managers now account for 10.2% of all workers, up from 8.5% just a few short years ago.

Now, it's not quite as black-and-white as that appears, and there are some complicating explanatory factors. For example: many employers are doubling up young managers as a large cohort of baby boomers continue to retire, so that they can be mentored by the retiring managers; companies are dispensing management titles more easily as means of staff retention in a period of historic low unemployment; and the title itself is being diluted ("title inflation"), largely as a sop to Gen Z workers who feel starved of recognition. 

In the tech sector.in particular, many new jobs, especially remote ones, may carry the title "manager", even if they don't involve the oversight of subordinates.

But the trend is real, and can be seen in many different sectors, from professional, scientific and technical services (up 59.4% between 2019 and 2023) to wholesale trade (up 49.8%) to manufacturing (up 41.5%) and, to a lesser extent, finance (up 27.1%). This outsized growth is even more marked in the private sector than the public. The USA has experienced a similar management surge, although less dramatic than in Canada (up from 5.5% to 6.9%).

This could, of course, have profound implications for Canada's productivity crisis,  which I have commented on elsewhere.