• Hanwha-led industrial cooperation related to Canada’s Patrol Submarine Project (CPSP) has been analyzed to be supporting more than 200,000 job-years across multiple sectors over the 2026-2040 period, with peak annual employment reaching about 26,000 jobs.
• Hanwha plans a large-scale, multi-decade trade and investment footprint across Canada, driving employment creation across a vast spectrum of sectors—from energy and steel to shipbuilding, advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, satellite communications, and digital technologies—anchored in major industrial provinces.
• The employment impact is expected to expand further as other Korean companies pursue additional investment and industrial cooperation in Canada, including automotive manufacturing, aviation, resource development, and related supply chains.
When Canada launched the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project (CPSP), the initial debate was understandably placed on technical naval capabilities such as range, endurance, weapons and combat management systems, and performance in demanding operating environments. Increasingly, however, the programme is being assessed through a broader lens: whether major defence procurement can deliver sovereign industrial capacity and contribute to Canada’s wider nation-building objectives.
Hanwha’s approach to CPSP reflects that shift more than others. Rather than treating the programme as as a transactional submarine acquisition, Hanwha has positioned CPSP as a strategic gateway for long-term industrial participation in Canada, linking defence sustainment with a broader portfolio of investment, trade, and industrial cooperation across multiple sectors.
According to analysis by KPMG, a global advisory and professional services firm, Hanwha-linked industrial cooperation is is forecast to generate more than 200,000 job-years in cumulative employment impact over the 2026–2040 period, encompassing direct, indirect, and induced employment. A job-year represents one full-time employee working for one year, reflecting total employment supported over time rather than jobs in a single year. These estimates are preliminary at this stage and intended to illustrate the potential scale of impact.
On an annualised basis, this equates to roughly 13,000 jobs supported each year. Employment spans a broad set of sectors, including shipbuilding and steel production, aerospace and advanced manufacturing, energy and infrastructure, long-term sustainment and maintenance, logistics and services, and digital and other advanced technologies.
Taken together, supporting around 13,000 jobs each year, sustained over the long term, creates an employment footprint more comparable to major national infrastructure projects than to a single defence purchase. The result is not a short-lived boost, but a durable contribution to Canada’s industrial economy.
Importantly, this employment profile is driven by ongoing operational activity rather than temporary construction phases. A significant share of the jobs are linked to long-duration functions such as manufacturing, maintenance, systems integration, and lifecycle services—the “backbone” roles of a modern industrial economy. As a result, employment under this model reinforces workforce stability and supplier continuity instead of producing boom-and-bust cycles.
From an impact-assessment perspective, it is important to note that the 200,000 job-years estimate reflects a defined analytical horizon aligned with current industrial and ITB frameworks. In practice, however, CPSP is structured as a long-term industrial and capability programme. Its implementation spans initial construction and delivery through decades of in-service support, maintenance, and lifecycle upgrades, meaning that employment associated with these activities is sustained—and in many cases expanded—well beyond the initial analytical period.
Where the employment comes from
The analysis identifies that these jobs are diversified across the Canadian economy. At one end are large, long-running energy and infrastructure projects. Investments in areas such as offshore wind, nuclear power, integrated energy facilities, advanced materials, and hydrogen-related industries support sizeable workforces over many years These projects move slowly, but once underway they provide steady employment that can last a decade or more.
Alongside this sits a broad base of manufacturing and industrial work. Activities such as equipment assembly, facility upgrades, maintenance operations, and logistics services generate a constant need for skilled technicians, engineers, and production workers. These jobs do not peak and disappear; they continue as long as systems are operating and being maintained, and are supported across the value chain—from upstream suppliers and component manufacturers to downstream sustainment, services, and logistics providers.
There is also a growing share of employment tied to advanced technology and innovation. Demand for digital engineering, AI-enabled systems, sensing technologies, and applied research creates high-skill roles that complement traditional manufacturing. While smaller in number, these jobs play an important role in keeping Canada’s industrial base competitive and future-ready.
Together, these different sources of employment help explain why the overall job impact is both large in total and stable year to year. Rather than depending on a single project or facility, employment is spread across sectors and regions, making it more resilient and less vulnerable to sudden stop-start cycles.
Looking ahead, this employment base could expand further as more Korean industrial partners explore new investment and industrial cooperation opportunities in Canada, particularly in adjacent sectors such as automotive manufacturing, aviation, resource development, and related supply chains.
Why these jobs last
What makes this employment impact significant is not just the headline numbers, but how long the jobs last. Most of the programmes assessed in the KPMG analysis run for well over a decade, with many extending into the 2030s and 2040s. This places Hanwha’s industrial cooperation in Canada on the same timeline as the country’s long-term plans for defence modernization, clean energy development, and critical infrastructure investment.
For workers, this stability enables career building rather than movement from project to project. For companies, predictable demand over long horizons encourages investment in local facilities, skills, and supply chains.
In this sense, the employment impact is not an end in itself, but a reflection of a deeper structural choice. CPSP increasingly centres on whether Canada can localise critical elements of the submarine value chain—from steel and shipyard activity to long-term sustainment—so that in-service support is conducted in Canada and sovereign capability is retained over the full life cycle of the fleet.
“Our commitment in Canada is centred on long-term employment and industrial growth,” said Hee-Cheol Kim, President and CEO of Hanwha Ocean. “By investing across multiple sectors and working with Canadian partners nationwide, we are helping to build industrial capability that stays in Canada for decades—supporting both economic resilience and long-term security.”
Building jobs through long-term partnerships
A key reason these jobs are expected to endure lies in the way Hanwha is building a long-term industrial presence in Canada. Over the past two years, Hanwha has engaged with more than 100 Canadian companies and institutions, formalising cooperation through teaming agreements, memoranda of understanding, and contracts across energy, materials, advanced manufacturing, digital technologies, and defence-related systems.
To date, Hanwha has teaming agreements, MOUs, and contracts in place with more than a dozen Canadian partners, including Babcock Canada, BlackBerry, CAE, Curtiss-Wright Indal Technologies, Des Nedhe Group, Gastops, Hepburn Engineering, J Squared Technologies, L3Harris Canada, ModestTree, and PCL Construction. This network has been further reinforced through engagement with regional and development partners, including Montréal International and the Province of Nova Scotia.
These partnerships extend across shipbuilding, steel production, artificial intelligence, satellite communications, advanced sensing technologies, and energy infrastructure, and are helping to establish a foundation for medium- to long-term industrial cooperation across key regions including Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, and Alberta.
Most recently, Hanwha’s energy affiliate Q ENERGY France, together with Hanwha Ocean, entered the pre-qualification process for an offshore wind bid in Nova Scotia, alongside a memorandum of understanding with Fermeuse Energy on the Newfoundland and Labrador LNG project—underscoring the continued momentum of Hanwha’s multi-sector engagement in Canada.
For suppliers, this momentum provides long-term visibility and investment certainty. For workers, it translates into sustained demand across interconnected industries, supporting durable careers rather than short-term project work.
Why Hanwha stands out as a partner for Canada
Hanwha’s ability to support this employment profile is closely tied to the company’s diversified business portfolio. Operating across energy, shipbuilding, defence systems, aerospace, infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing, the group can connect industrial activity to sectors with independent growth trajectories, helping sustain jobs even as individual projects evolve.
That breadth is reinforced by Hanwha’s global experience. Across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America, the company has delivered large-scale industrial and defence programmes by combining capital investment, local workforce development, and a sustained in-country presence. Rather than relying on short-term project teams, it embeds production, maintenance, and systems-integration capabilities over the long term.
Applied in Canada, this approach shows how defence-related industrial cooperation can function as a durable employment architecture. The result is an outcome that is ultimately more than submarines: a long-term contribution to Canada’s economic resilience, industrial capacity, and national security over decades.
