But there’s perhaps no clearer one, in hollowed-out downtown cores across the country, than the sight of millions of office workers returning to cities after spending much of the past three years working from home.
The trend is undeniable. Cellphone data suggests that Canadian cities are now about half as full of people during the workday compared with before the pandemic. That’s well up from under 10 per cent observed at various points since 2020, when the pandemic began and lockdowns were implemented.
While Canadian cities are still laggards compared with those in the United States, a number of major employers are trying to do what they can to close that gap.
3 days a week
After allowing its office employees to work from home during the pandemic, Canada’s most valuable company, the Royal Bank of Canada, took a major step in mandating that, effective May 1, its staff come into the office at least three days a week, citing productivity concerns.
“I think that the absence of working together in many ways has led to productivity and innovation challenges, and society isn’t back together enough and working enough,” president and CEO Dave McKay said in explaining the decision.
RBC isn’t the only company that thinks that. As of this week, e-commerce giant Amazon is doing the same thing, requiring virtually all staff to be in the office at least three days a week.
Bringing thousands of people back to the office — some of whom have never even been there because they were hired during the pandemic — is a complex problem, “so we’re going to give the teams that need to do that work some time to develop a plan,” Amazon’s president and CEO, Andy Jassy, said.
Mackenzie Irwin, an employment lawyer with Samfiru Tumarkin LLP in Toronto and Ottawa, said that’s wise, because employers are risking legal headaches if they force changes to people’s working conditions unreasonably.
“You’ve got to give your employees sufficient notice and time to make necessary arrangements in order to come back,” she told CBC News in an interview.
Workers weigh in on return to the office
In downtown Toronto this week, office workers shared their thoughts with CBC News about the pros and cons of coming back into the office after working mostly from home for much of the pandemic.
Irwin said her office is being flooded with calls from employees hired during the pandemic who are now being asked to come into the office and want to know their rights.
The bad news? For most workers, the employer is on very solid ground in asking people to come back.
“For the majority of employees, if you started working remotely throughout the pandemic … your employer does have a right to recall you back to the office,” she said. “If your employment contract doesn’t specifically state that your position is a remote position … your employer does have a right to call you back.”
Irwin said working from home during the pandemic was life-changing for workers — many of whom were able to lock in those gains by negotiating them in a contract when companies were desperate to find staff.
“But now we’re seeing a switch, where there’s a lot of downsizing, not a lot of hiring,” she said. “It may be that we’re coming into a scenario where that leverage is kind of lost for the employees.”
Right vs. privilege
Linda Duxbury, a professor of management and strategy at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business in Ottawa, said the current brouhaha over working from home boils down to a fundamental disagreement between workers and employers over whether it’s a development that’s good for the entire company or simply a perk that some workers get and others don’t.
“After they’ve worked from home for two or three years, many people think it’s a right,” she said in an interview. “But many employers do not think it’s a right, they think it’s a privilege.”
Duxbury said it’s important to remember that working from home is a moot point for most people because a majority of them have jobs where it can’t be done. But for the rest, the two sides are digging in because they don’t agree on what the goals are.
“Back before the pandemic, when employers talked about productivity, it was really equated to hours at work, being available 24/7, working, being visible, never saying no, et cetera,” she said in an interview.
Employees who are thriving by working from home say they’re putting in as many hours as they were before and that their work output is the same if not more, Duxbury said.
“But employers have changed the definition of productivity. Now they’re saying it’s about creativity, innovation, social connection, culture.”
The problem for employers, she said, is that there is very little empirical evidence to back up the theory that in-person collaboration is better for business — which makes workers who are meeting and exceeding the same work targets they’ve always had feeling needlessly aggrieved for being required to return to the office.
“We have to be able to have the discussion on productivity — not focusing on hours and availability — but focusing on output,” Duxbury said.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was higher in late-morning trading, helped by strength in energy stocks, while U.S. stock markets also moved up.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 34.91 points at 23,736.98.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 178.05 points at 41,800.13. The S&P 500 index was up 28.38 points at 5,661.47, while the Nasdaq composite was up 133.17 points at 17,725.30.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.56 cents US compared with 73.57 cents US on Monday.
The November crude oil contract was up 68 cents at US$69.70 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up three cents at US$2.40 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$7.80 at US$2,601.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.28 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Canada’s inflation rate fell to two per cent last month, finally hitting the Bank of Canada’s target after a tumultuous battle with skyrocketing price growth.
The annual inflation rate fell from 2.5 per cent in July to reach the lowest level since February 2021.
Statistics Canada’s consumer price index report on Tuesday attributed the slowdown in part to lower gasoline prices.
Clothing and footwear prices also decreased on a month-over-month basis, marking the first decline in the month of August since 1971 as retailers offered larger discounts to entice shoppers amid slowing demand.
The Bank of Canada’s preferred core measures of inflation, which strip out volatility in prices, also edged down in August.
The marked slowdown in price growth last month was steeper than the 2.1 per cent annual increase forecasters were expecting ahead of Tuesday’s release and will likely spark speculation of a larger interest rate cut next month from the Bank of Canada.
“Inflation remains unthreatening and the Bank of Canada should now focus on trying to stimulate the economy and halting the upward climb in the unemployment rate,” wrote CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham.
Benjamin Reitzes, managing director of Canadian rates and macro strategist at BMO, said Tuesday’s figures “tilt the scales” slightly in favour of more aggressive cuts, though he noted the Bank of Canada will have one more inflation reading before its October rate announcement.
“If we get another big downside surprise, calls for a 50 basis-point cut will only grow louder,” wrote Reitzes in a client note.
The central bank began rapidly hiking interest rates in March 2022 in response to runaway inflation, which peaked at a whopping 8.1 per cent that summer.
The central bank increased its key lending rate to five per cent and held it at that level until June 2024, when it delivered its first rate cut in four years.
A combination of recovered global supply chains and high interest rates have helped cool price growth in Canada and around the world.
Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem recently signalled that the central bank is ready to increase the size of its interest rate cuts, if inflation or the economy slow by more than expected.
Its key lending rate currently stands at 4.25 per cent.
CIBC is forecasting the central bank will cut its key rate by two percentage points between now and the middle of next year.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is also expected on Wednesday to deliver its first interest rate cut in four years.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
FREDERICTON – New Brunswick‘s finance minister says the province recorded a surplus of $500.8 million for the fiscal year that ended in March.
Ernie Steeves says the amount — more than 10 times higher than the province’s original $40.3-million budget projection for the 2023-24 fiscal year — was largely the result of a strong economy and population growth.
The report of a big surplus comes as the province prepares for an election campaign, which will officially start on Thursday and end with a vote on Oct. 21.
Steeves says growth of the surplus was fed by revenue from the Harmonized Sales Tax and federal money, especially for health-care funding.
Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs has promised to reduce the HST by two percentage points to 13 per cent if the party is elected to govern next month.
Meanwhile, the province’s net debt, according to the audited consolidated financial statements, has dropped from $12.3 billion in 2022-23 to $11.8 billion in the most recent fiscal year.
Liberal critic René Legacy says having a stronger balance sheet does not eliminate issues in health care, housing and education.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
