Economic Development Dashboard
The Ottawa Economic Dashboard has been created to provide easy access to data in a centralized location, and includes key indicators for the city’s labour force, real estate, livability, and downtown.
Like many municipalities in Canada and around the world, Ottawa’s economy – particularly the downtown core – continues to evolve in the post-pandemic context. Recognizing new challenges and opportunities, the City of Ottawa has made a diversified and prosperous economy a key strategic priority for this term of Council. To track progress, information on the health of the local economy should be readily available to residents, the business community, and other economic development partners.The dashboard offers a high-level view of Ottawa’s economy and is replacing the quarterly Economic Development Update reports that were previously provided in PDF format to the City’s Finance and Corporate Services Committee and the business community. New data and metrics will be added over time in consultation with the City’s economic development partners.
The economic indicators are presented as a series of cards on the dashboard showing the year-over-year trend “at a glance”. A more detailed breakdown can be viewed for each indicator, allowing users to dig deeper into the data. An About the Data section has been included to describe the importance of the metric to Ottawa’s economy and help contextualize this information.
Definitions
The Economic Development Dashboard contains data on the following indicators for Ottawa’s labour force, real estate, livability and the downtown:
Labour force
- Labour Force - persons employed or unemployed and available to work
- Participation Rate - percentage of total population aged 15 years and older in the labour force
- Employed - persons with paid work or self-employment
- Employment Rate - employed persons as a percentage of the total population aged 15 years and over
- Unemployed - persons without paid work or self-employment and available to work
- Unemployment Rate - unemployed persons as a percentage of the labour force
- Vacant Positions - vacant positions on the last business day of the month
- Housing starts - number of new housing units started
- Construction permits - total value of residential and non-residential construction permits
- Resale price - average price of resale market homes listed in MLS database
- Resale units - number of resale market homes sold listed in MLS database
- Office vacancy - office space (Class A, B, C) available for occupancy immediately or within 30 days
- Retail vacancy - retail space available for occupancy
- Industrial vacancy - industrial space available for occupancy
- Population - City of Ottawa estimate based on census and municipal building permits
- Consumer price index - measures price changes for fixed basket of goods and services
- Average income - total after-tax income for individuals (market income and government transfers)
- Population - City of Ottawa estimate for downtown based on census and municipal building permits
- DaytimePop (Environics) - estimate of pop downtown during daytime hours (vs. nighttime pop in census)
- Visits to the ByWard Market - foot traffic recorded within ByWard Market District Authority boundary
- Office vacancy - space in Central Business District available for occupancy immediately or within 30 days
- Retail vacancy - space in the Central Business District available for occupancy
- Food premises - business licenses issued by the City for establishments preparing food (dine-in, takeout)
- Patio/Café permits - permits issued by the City or ByWard Market District Authority for outdoor seating
- Commercial tax revenue - commercial tax revenue collected by the City in the Downtown Core Transec
Datasets available for download
-
Document LinkHTML
Linked dataset resource
Additional Info
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Last Updated | March 24, 2026, 20:40 (UTC) |
| Created | March 24, 2026, 20:40 (UTC) |
|
Domain / Topic
Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
|
|
|
Title
Title for the Dataset.
|
Economic Development Dashboard |
|
Description
A description of the dataset.
|
The Ottawa Economic Dashboard has been created to provide easy access to data in a centralized location, and includes key indicators for the city’s labour force, real estate, livability, and downtown. Like many municipalities in Canada and around the world, Ottawa’s economy – particularly the downtown core – continues to evolve in the post-pandemic context. Recognizing new challenges and opportunities, the City of Ottawa has made a diversified and prosperous economy a key strategic priority for this term of Council. To track progress, information on the health of the local economy should be readily available to residents, the business community, and other economic development partners.The dashboard offers a high-level view of Ottawa’s economy and is replacing the quarterly Economic Development Update reports that were previously provided in PDF format to the City’s Finance and Corporate Services Committee and the business community. New data and metrics will be added over time in consultation with the City’s economic development partners. The economic indicators are presented as a series of cards on the dashboard showing the year-over-year trend “at a glance”. A more detailed breakdown can be viewed for each indicator, allowing users to dig deeper into the data. An About the Data section has been included to describe the importance of the metric to Ottawa’s economy and help contextualize this information. Definitions The Economic Development Dashboard contains data on the following indicators for Ottawa’s labour force, real estate, livability and the downtown: Labour force
|
|
Tags / Keywords
Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.
|
|
|
Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc)
File format of the dataset.
|
|
|
Dataset Size
Dataset size in megabytes.
|
0.12 |
|
Metadata Identifier
Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
|
|
|
Published Date
Published date of the dataset.
|
2025-06-04 |
|
Time Period Data Span (start date)
Start date of the data in the dataset.
|
|
|
Time Period Data Span (end date)
End date of time data in the dataset.
|
|
|
GeoSpatial Area Data Span
A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.
|
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Access category
Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
|
public |
|
License
License used to access the dataset.
|
Open Data | City of Ottawa |
|
Limits on use
Limits on use of data.
|
|
|
Location
Location of the dataset.
|
https://od-dev2-ottawa.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/ottawa::economic-development-dashboard |
|
Data Service
Data service for accessing a dataset.
|
|
|
Owner
Owner of the dataset.
|
[email protected] |
|
Contact Point
Who to contact regarding access?
|
City of Ottawa |
|
Contact Point Email
The email to contact regarding access?
|
[email protected] |
|
Publisher
Publisher of the dataset.
|
City of Ottawa |
|
Publisher Email
Email of the publisher.
|
|
|
Author
Author of the dataset.
|
[email protected] |
|
Author Email
Email of the author.
|
|
|
Accessed At
Date the data and metadata was accessed.
|
2025-08-11 |
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Identifier
Unique identifier for the dataset.
|
f87ab698aee64eec9c2ec637f33bd5aa |
|
Language
Language(s) of the dataset
|
English |
|
Link to dataset description
A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
|
https://od-dev2-ottawa.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/ottawa::economic-development-dashboard |
|
Persistent Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
|
|
|
Globally Unique Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
|
|
|
Contains data about individuals
Does the data hold data about individuals?
|
|
|
Contains data about identifiable individuals
Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
|
|
|
Contains Indigenous Data
Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
|
|
|
Portal Type
Platform type of the source portal.
|
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Version
Version of the datatset
|
None |
|
Source
Source of the dataset.
|
None |
|
Version notes
Version notes about the dataset.
|
|
|
Is version of another dataset
Link to dataset that it is a version of.
|
|
|
Other versions
Link to datasets that are versions of it.
|
|
|
Provenance Text
Provenance Text of the data.
|
City of Ottawa |
|
Provenance URL
Provenance URL of the data.
|
|
|
Temporal resolution
Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
|
|
|
GeoSpatial resolution in meters
Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
|
|
|
GeoSpatial resolution (in regions)
Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.
|
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Indigenous Community Permission
Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
|
|
|
Community Permission
Community permission (who gave permission).
|
|
|
The Indigenous communities the dataset is about
Indigenous communities from which data is derived.
|
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
|
Number of data rows
If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
|
|
|
Number of data columns
If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
|
|
|
Number of data cells
If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
|
|
|
Number of data relations
If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
|
|
|
Number of entities
If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
|
|
|
Number of data properties
If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
|
|
|
Data quality
Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
|
|
|
Metric for data quality
A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.
|
0 Comments