Canada is third largest videogames employer, pushes UK to fourth

Thanks to all those juicy business incentives, Canada has become the 3rd biggest employer of videogame professionals for our industry.

More than 14,000 are now picking up Canadian cheques by more than 247 studios. The ESAC says this is behind only Japan and the US.

The Canadian Financial Post has revealed some statistics, like how 138,000 are general programmers or in development roles. That means videogames account for around 10 percent of software related positions in Canada.

Publishers EA, Ubisoft and Eidos are all invested in Canadian real estate. The UK has now announced plans for videogame industry tax breaks similar to what the films sector gets. Now that a general election has been called though…

They expect 29 percent more development staff in Canada by 2011. Frontier Developments founder David Braben warns that if the UK doesn’t do something soon then it could fall behind France and China in the game league tables.

So, who’s for Canada?

Source: GamesIndustry.biz