Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee. I was thinking I don't get to see my colleagues nearly enough, so thank you for that opportunity.
Our association represents about 500 private sector companies that provide independent consulting engineering services to a wide range of both private and public sector clients. Their services include the planning, design, and execution of all types of engineering projects, as well as providing independent advice and expertise in a wide range of engineering and scientifically related fields.
In this position, our members have a direct impact on virtually every aspect of our economic, social, and environmental quality of life. At the end of the day our association exists to advocate for a business and regulatory climate that allows our members to be successful and also to offer the highest level of service and the highest possible value to our clients.
We are a federation of the 12 provincial and territorial associations. We're also a member of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers. If you would indulge me with a commercial, their executive committee will be meeting in Ottawa in May. We've been planning to have a reception on the Hill, and you're all invited, or will be.
We're a very influential voice in that organization. In fact, we're the fifth-largest exporter of engineering services in the world, and I think that's something. If there are two types of people who I find are insecure, they're Canadians and engineers, so it's pretty important for us to be number five in the world.
On the state of engineering today, StatsCan uses a category that's a little broader than just our consulting companies, but operating revenue from that whole category of all private sector engineering companies is about $22.5 billion. Our consulting engineering part of that is about two-thirds. The other part would be EPCM firms.
We have companies that build and set up equipment, but they're not really independent consulting services. For example, none of our members are mining companies, but they may consult or provide expertise to mining companies.
Our members directly employ about 75,000 across the country. Again, we're an association of companies, not engineers. Those 75,000 are engineers, land use planners, natural scientists, and administrative staff. More and more are multidisciplinary firms.
By the way, our industry, across the 500 firms, represents about 3,000 different offices around the country.
We've seen a lot of consolidation in our industry. It's certainly been very good since the recession of the 1990s. To give you an illustration of what we've been contending with, since 2002, roughly 10 years ago, the number of firms we represent has gone down by about 24%, and that's not because of economic viability; on the contrary, it's consolidation, driven by a number of factors, including opportunity. At the same time, while our number of firms has shrunk, the staff members our association represents has gone up by 90%. I think that's a pretty good success story for our industry.
Factors contributing to consolidation, of course, are a greater demand for one-stop shopping and multidisciplinary firms; certainly and particularly recently, a capacity for larger-scale and higher-risk projects; and succession planning.
The recession of the 1990s was catastrophic for our industry. The firm I worked for at the time went from 500 to 300 employees in a span of 18 months. We saw massive layoffs. We saw enrolment in engineering drop. We now have a demographic hole in our profession.
There was no stimulus program at the time. There was no major investment. We estimate that fewer than 10% of the practising engineers in our industry are between the ages of 41 and 50. These would be the people you'd be selling shares to. These would be the people you'd be asking to step into leadership roles. That lack of succession or availability of successors in companies has driven a bit of the consolidation in the industry.
With regard to our market sectors, the municipal and government sector and the public sector in general were extremely busy heading into the last recession, but we managed to continue to grow through that. Some of the credit certainly goes to the stimulus program, which, while not a perfect program, we certainly view as a largely successful and worthwhile program. I think there were a lot of valuable lessons from it.
We are cautiously optimistic that a long-term infrastructure investment program will come, hopefully, in the near future.
The resource sector remains very strong. It's offset some of the softness in the industrial and commercial sector, and traditionally tends to be our strongest export sector. As most people are aware, the industrial and commercial sector was probably the most severely impacted during the recession. This certainly caused some displacement. It wasn't all good during that period.
Some jobs were lost, but there was net growth and some displacement within the industry. We thinks it's starting to come back, but of course, like you, we're all watching the world markets. We're all looking at what's going to unfold in the years ahead.
I mentioned that globally we're recognized as the fifth-largest exporter. Our engineering education in Canada is uniformly excellent. Our regulatory system is very good. We have strong capabilities in virtually every sector.
Since I'm getting into the notes, I can certainly address some of the specific policy problems during the question period.