The Sector in Canada and Overseas
Q: Which fast-growing sector of the Canadian economy employs almost as many people as manufacturing?
A: Nonprofit organizations!
In Canada, the nonprofit and voluntary sector is the second largest in the world, employing 1.5 million full-time (FTE) workers, or roughly 9% of the economically active population.
http://sectorsource.ca/sites/default/files/resources/files/jhu_report_en.pdf
NGOs are a significant sector in many countries around the globe. National surveys have counted more than one million NGOs in India, 359,000 registered NGOs in Russia, 55,000 in Poland, 570,000 in Germany in 2008, and 161, 000 in Canada (Statistics Canada 2005). These numbers are increasing, across the board – for example, between 1982 and 2006, the number of nonprofits in the United States nearly doubled from 793,000 to 1,478,000 (Urban Institute, 2006).