In Quebec, the proportion of workers using mainly French at work is slightly down in favor of English.
English is spoken primarily by 14% of people in the workplace, according to data from the 2021 census, released Wednesday by Statistics Canada. This represents an increase of 2% compared to 2016.
The percentage of workers who speak French and English equally at work is also down. From 7.3% in 2016, it fell to 5.4% in 2021.
The federal agency notes, however, that the increase in the proportion of workers using mainly English is partly the result of the change made to the question on working languages.
This change led workers to report using French and English equally less frequently, and to report using only one of these two languages more frequently.
In previous censuses, Statistics Canada asked respondents to indicate the language they used most often at work, then the other languages. As part of the 2021 census, respondents were first asked to indicate the languages they used regularly at work, then specify the others if there was more than one.
In the 2016 census, 12% of workers used mainly English and 7.3% used French and English equally.
The percentage of those who mainly used French was 80% in 2016 and 81.8% in 2001.
It is of course in the Montreal region that English occupies the greatest place at work.
In fact, only 70% of workers in Greater Montreal mainly use French in the professional environment, while 21% mainly use English and 8.3% say they use French and English equally.
In all, 38.3% of workers in the Montreal region use both French and English on a regular basis at work.
Some industry sectors are more affected than others.
From 2016 to 2021, the decline in the use of French as the language mainly spoken at work is more marked in the information and cultural industries (from 68.1% in 2016 to 62.3% in 2021 ); in the finance and insurance sector (74.3% to 71%); and in professional, scientific and technical services (69.2% to 65.7%).
Among all the provinces and territories, Quebec ranked second, after Nunavut, in terms of the proportion of workers using more than one language on a regular basis at work, at 28.7% of workers.
Across the country, 77.1% of employed people mainly use English at work, 19.9% mainly use French and 1.7% use both languages equally.