What are the most distinctive jobs in your province?

Canada is a diverse country, with jobs that reflect that diversity. 

Below is our interactive map of what we're calling the most distinctive jobs for each province. Some might seem predictable — jobs such as longshore workers in B.C., petroleum engineers in Alberta and fishing vessel deckhands in Nova Scotia top the lists in those places, for example.

But it may come as a surprise to learn that visiting homemakers and housekeepers claim the top slot in Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as Manitoba. Other provinces show equally interesting results.

Scroll through and see what job is the most distinctive where you live (and check out our methodology here for an explanation of what, exactly, we're classifying as a province's most "disproportionately popular" job).

(We asked for a similar breakdown for Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories, but were told by Statistics Canada that the data quality of detailed occupations for those places wasn't sufficient for publishing.)

The U.S. keeps similar data calculated by the Labour Department's Occupational Employment Statistics operation every few years. We saw this map put together by Vox.com and wondered what the Canadian equivalent would look like.

Here's an infographic that lays out the top unique occupations in each province. Job descriptions are all listed at the bottom of the page.

How we did it

First off, this is not a list of the most common job for each province — that title goes to something to do with retail, in every province Statistics Canada has data for.

Instead, this is a visual look at what the data agency calls "location quotients," a calculation of whether any given job is disproportionately more common in one area compared with how common it is, on average, across the country.

We got the number first by calculating the share of employees in each occupational grouping at both the national and provincial level. Second, the share of each occupation at the provincial level was divided by the share of each occupation at the national level, giving the ratio of the number of employees in the occupation in each province relative to the national level.

So the figure 4.2 for "underground production and development miners" in Saskatchewan, for example, means there are 4.2 times more of them there than in the rest of the country, in terms of how prevalent they are as a percentage of all jobs in that area.

Put another way, you're 4.2 times more likely to be a miner in Saskatchewan than you are anywhere else in Canada.

The occupations with the highest ratio and with at least 1,500 employees in the province are the ones listed above. And once again, this data should not be confused with most common occupations. In fact, many of them have small numbers of employees in each province; they just have the highest ratio relative to the national share of such occupations.

• Visiting homemakers, housekeepers and related occupations
  Visiting homemakers provide continuing or short-term home support services for individuals and families during periods of incapacitation, convalescence or family disruption. They are employed by government and non-profit and home care agencies. Housekeepers perform housekeeping and other home management duties in private households, embassies and other residential establishments. Companions provide elderly and convalescent clients with companionship and personal care in residential settings. They are employed by home care agencies. Foster parents care for children or family members in their homes under the direction of a foster parent agency.
   
• Nurse aides, orderlies and patient service associates
  People in these jobs assist nurses, hospital staff and physicians in the basic care of patients. They are employed in hospitals, nursing homes and other health-care facilities.
   
• Fishing vessel deckhands
  These workers perform a variety of manual tasks on commercial fishing voyages and maintain fishing vessels. They are employed by establishments that operate commercial fishing vessels and by self-employed fishermen.
   
• Customer service, information and related clerks
  This group includes clerks who answer inquiries and provide information regarding an establishment's goods, services and policies and who provide customer services such as receiving payments and processing requests for services. They are employed by retail establishments, call centres, insurance, telephone and utility companies and other establishments throughout the private and public sectors.
   
• Electrical mechanics
  These workers maintain, test, rebuild and repair electric motors, transformers, switchgear and other electrical apparatus. They are employed by independent electrical repair shops, service shops of electrical equipment manufacturers and maintenance departments of manufacturing companies.
   
• Motor vehicle assemblers, inspectors and testers
  Motor vehicle assemblers assemble and install prefabricated motor vehicle parts and components to form subassemblies and finished motor vehicles. Motor vehicle inspectors and testers inspect and test parts, subassemblies, accessories and finished products to ensure proper performance and conformity to quality standards. They are employed in plants that manufacture automobiles, vans and light trucks.
   
• Underground production and development miners
  These miners drill, blast, operate mining machinery and perform related duties to extract coal and ore in underground mines and to construct tunnels, passageways and shafts to facilitate mining operations. They are employed by coal, metal and non-metallic mineral underground mines and by specialized contractors in mine construction, shaft sinking and tunnelling.
   
• Petroleum engineers
  Engineers in this category conduct studies for the exploration, development and extraction of oil and gas deposits; and plan, design, develop and supervise projects for the drilling, completion, testing and re-working of oil and gas wells. They are employed by petroleum producing companies, consulting companies, well logging or testing companies, and by government and research and educational institutions.
   
• Longshore workers
  These workers transfer cargo throughout dock area and onto and from ships and other vessels. They are employed by marine cargo handling companies, shipping agencies and shipping lines.