Thousands of Niagara workers have yet to return to their jobs, as the region’s economy continues to recover from the pandemic shutdown.
“There are still 16,000 people in Niagara who have not regained their employment since COVID-19 hit,” said Niagara’s economic development officer Val Kuhns.
Although the region is “trending in the right direction towards pre-pandemic numbers,” she said, that could quickly change.
“The concern is that a second wave would mean closure for a number of small businesses,” Kuhns said at Wednesday’s Niagara Region planning and economic development meeting.
She said Niagara’s economy continued to rebound in August, although it still lagged behind the growth the region was experiencing in February before the pandemic hit.
“Some sectors have been hit harder than others, particularly those that depend on face-to-face contact with customers — hospitality, food service, retail and accommodation,” she said, adding statistics also indicate many people who lost their jobs chose to exit the workforce.
Niagara’s unemployment rate for August was 11.3 per cent, which is down from a high of 12.9 per cent in June, “but this is well above the rate of 5.8 per cent which we reached in 2019.”
It’s also slightly higher than the national average of 10.2 per cent, and comparable with regions including Kitchener-Waterloo and Windsor.
Despite the overall improvement in the unemployment rate, she said youth unemployment increased to 28.9 per cent, compared to 10.4 per cent a year earlier.
Pelham Coun. Diana Huson said Niagara’s young people are not receiving enough attention.
“The youth are now facing a nearly 30 per cent unemployment rate, when traditionally at this time of year they were closer to 10 or 11 per cent,” she said, asking if there are any municipal initiatives to address the issue.
Kuhns said she’d look into any programs that may be available to help.
“Like you, I was alarmed at the high rate of youth unemployment,” Kuhns replied. “It affects their ability to go on to post-secondary education because that is generally why a lot of them anyway would be working. I think it brings out bigger concerns.”
Kuhns said 5,000 people were hired in August for service industry jobs such as tourism and retail, for a total of 140,600 “which is still nearly 21,000 short of where the numbers were last year.”
But only about 400 people were hired by accommodation and food service businesses, for a total of 15,200 people working in the sector, compared to 26,100 a year earlier.
Most full-time jobs added in August were in manufacturing, where 4,200 vacancies were filled for a total of 45,300. That’s an increase of nearly 5,000 people over August last year.
Kuhns said her department plans to provide an update on investment and development activity in October, as well as a full economic update and analysis report in November.
Source: – StCatharinesStandard.ca
