The Economy

Kingston is one of Canada´s top 25 cities and has much to offer potential investors - a strategic location with access to markets, cost competitiveness, brain power, bilingual capability, and perhaps most important is the stable and diversified economy.

With a healthy balance between public and private sector employment, Kingston's unemployment rate is consistently one of the lowest in the country. 

Our relative diversity in dominant industries also helps shelter the city from economic downturns in specific sectors.

Dominant Industries

^{* Source - Conference Board of Canada, Metropolitan Outlook Summer, 2009}

For a list of Kingston's major public and private sector employers, please click here.

City's Financial Rating Remains At A++

Standard & Poor's announced that Kingston's financial rating will remain AA- with a "positive" outlook.

In its rating statement, Standard & Poor's indicates that "the City has good long-term economic prospects" and that its advantageous location "makes Kingston an attractive place to set up business." The rating report says that there is potential for Kingston to foster economic growth through knowledge-based industries by leveraging research - particularly life sciences and alternative energy research - at Queen's University and other public and private institutions.

Standard & Poor's says the positive outlooking rating for Kingston reflects an expectation that the rating could improve to the extent that the City does not significantly increase its debt, keeps it after-capital deficit at less than 10 per cent of total revenues and maintains its healthy liquidity and resilient economy.