Fredericton - Economy

Economy

The 19th and early 20th centuries, the lumber industry - with its corresponding mills - was a primary sector of Fredericton's economy. Over the course of the 20th century, this industry declined and gave way to the provincial government and the universities becoming the primary employers in the city.

The policies of centralizing provincial government functions during the 1960s under New Brunswick Premier Louis Robichaud - along with the expanded role of the public sector characteristic of the 1960s/70s - led to a sizeable expansion of the city's population. It was during these decades that the Hill area on the city's Southside was largely developed and bedroom communities such as New Maryland emerged.

The 1960s also saw an expansion of the University of New Brunswick - due to increased post-war university enrollment - as well as the construction of the Fredericton campus of Saint Thomas University. Also contributing to this expansion was the move of the Law School from Saint John to the Fredericton area. This expansion of the post-secondary sector also contributed to Fredericton's population growth during the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, the city's population has continued to grow though at a slower rate due to slower growth of the government sector - along with hiring freezes and in some cases layoffs - during the Frank McKenna and Bernard Lord governments.

In recent years, increased student enrollment at the city's universities has led to greater demand for rental property. This has led to the construction of new university residences and apartment buildings in the city, and increased rates of rent - making them the highest rental rates in the province.

The predominance of the universities and government provide Fredericton with a measure of economic stability. The city has not been subject to the uncertainty and hardships faced by Atlantic Canadian cities dealing with mill shutdowns and the decline of the mining and fishing industries. For this reason, Fredericton is one of the few Atlantic Canadian cities that has actually reported a population increase in recent years.

The city has been investing actively in IT infrastructure. The City of Fredericton was recently the winner of the "Judges Innovation Award" at the 2004 Canadian Information Productivity Awards due to their "Fred-eZone" free municipality wide WiFi network initiative. This and other innovations by the city's utelco, e-Novations, led Intel to do a case study on their successes. Fred-eZone spans much of the city’s downtown and parts of surrounding residential areas, as well as peripheral commercial areas such as Fredericton's Regent Mall.

The Intelligent Community Forum (a New York City based think tank) selected Fredericton as a 2008 and a 2009 Top 7 Intelligent Community based partly on the City's work in the IT sector.

Recently, the New Brunswick government has been seeking to attract more immigrants to the province (and consequently the Fredericton area) to increase the labour force and compensate for an aging population.

The Greater Fredericton Region has also established an investment attraction program called Invest Greater Fredericton. The purpose is to provide investors and site selectors with one central source for economic information such as real estate, demographics, key industries and more.