The Canadian job market may seem stuck in neutral—the national unemployment rate has hovered around 7% for over a year—but even in the current environment, there are great work opportunities in every part of the country. Job seekers just have to know where to look. Our 2014 listing of Canada’s Best Jobs uses market data to rank the best-paying, fastest-growing positions with the brightest outlook for the foreseeable future (see our methodology here).
Not surprisingly, jobs that service the energy sector and other primary industries in the West—Canada’s hottest job market—rank near the top of our list. But as growth there slows, demand for many of the best jobs has started to level off. As a result, a new job has risen to the top this year: lawyer. That result might seem surprising given the recent headlines declaring the demise of Canadian law firms (not to mention the hordes of law grads struggling to find articling positions), but lawyers are big earners, and over the past five years their numbers have swollen by 10,000. While much of this increase occurred in 2007 and 2008 (growth has levelled off since then), projected demand to 2020 makes the profession look promising.
As this list shows, there is opportunity out there, if you know where to look and have the right preparation. As Loverboy belted out in their 1981 hit, “Everybody’s working for the weekend”—but if you land one of Canada’s best jobs, you just might start looking forward to Monday as well.

View the complete list of Canada’s 100 Best Jobs »