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.”
RELATED STORIES
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.
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
