OTTAWA — Canada’s economy added 259,000 jobs last month, whipping past expectations to pull the country closer to pre-pandemic employment levels, with young women staring at the longest road to recovery.
One year into the pandemic, Canada’s job market is 599,100 jobs short of where it was in February of last year, or 3.1 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.
The shortfall is higher for young workers at 10.2 per cent, with young women between the ages of 15 and 24 the most affected group through this pandemic.
Statistics Canada said Friday that young women are down 181,000 jobs from February 2020, or off 14.1 per cent from pre-pandemic levels. For young men, the shortfall is 96,000, or 7.3 per cent.
The details add to the portrait of the pandemic’s disproportionate economic impact on women, dubbed the “shecession,” that the federal Liberals hope to address through a panel of experts that first met with Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Thursday.
“It reminds us that the shecession is not just mothers,” said Vass Bednar, executive director of McMaster University’s master of public policy program, and former chair of a federal expert panel on youth employment.
“There might be other reasons that women’s jobs are either being eliminated, or that they need more support coming back to the labour market.”
Ottawa has suggested it will use jobs as a gauge for planned stimulus measures to be unveiled in a spring budget.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the gains good news for workers and their families, Conservative critic Pierre Poilievre warned the government can’t yet pat itself on the back as he called for tax reform and other measures to get more people back to work.
The Bank of Canada is also monitoring employment data, noting the uneven impacts of job losses in its reasoning this week for holding its key interest rate target at 0.25 per cent.
Overall, the gain in February almost wiped out the 266,000 jobs lost over the previous two months, as lockdowns from December and January lifted in much of the country.
Almost all the job increases were among low-wage and part-time workers in areas like retail and accommodation.
The Conference Board of Canada noted the reopening of many retail outlets, mainly in Quebec and Ontario where lockdowns were particularly strict, brought back 122,300 jobs in February after losses of almost 168,000 jobs in January.
BMO chief economist Douglas Porter said similar gains could soon be seen in other hard-hit sectors like restaurants, hotels and entertainment if restrictions ease further.
“There is hope that as those sectors are eventually able to reopen, that we could recover quite quickly,” Porter said, adding he expects another gain in March.
The gains blew past expectations and were reminiscent of the first wave of the pandemic when employment rebounded far faster than expected as the economy began reopening, CIBC senior economist Royce Mendes wrote in a note.
The national unemployment rate fell to 8.2 per cent, the lowest level since March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The rate would have been higher, 10.7 per cent, had Statistics Canada included in calculations Canadians who wanted to work but didn’t search for a job.
The youth unemployment rate fell to 17.1 per cent in February, compared with the 10.4 per cent in the same month last year.
Typically, the youth unemployment rate is higher for men than women, but that trend has flipped during the pandemic, Statistics Canada said.
The agency noted that half of young women are employed in three highly affected sectors: accommodation, food services and retail.
“The higher unemployment rate is actually because of the labour market turbulence. It’s not because of young women leaving the workforce by choice, for example, to go back to school,” said Leah Nord, senior director of workforce strategies at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Nord said the figures speak to an urgent need for focused training programs so young workers can gain new skills, and improve what they already have.
Bryn de Chastelain, chair of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, said the federal government should expand a key summer jobs program to help students cover tuition and earn experience in troubled job market.
“Students are not feeling that they’re going to have an opportunity to get valuable work experience in their field of study and start to build the skills that they need in order to start a career,” said de Chastelain, a graduating student at Saint Mary’s University.
Employers may have to relax the premium they place on experience when hiring a young person, or shift their perspective to include things like volunteering, as many may now have experience gaps in formal employment, Bednar said.
“People might not be able to get that first job as easily as before and it’s really agitating for a generation of workers that is already set to fare worse than the generation before them,” she said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2021.
Jordan Press, The Canadian Press
<!– Photo: 20210311140348-604a74090e90790dcd8e0fd8jpeg.jpg, Caption: People line up at a Service Canada office in Montreal on Thursday, March 19, 2020. Statistics Canada to detail February jobs data Statistics Canada will say today how the country’s job market fared in February after it started 2021 with a steep drop. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson –>
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
