TORONTO —
Jobs lost during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic are coming back – but not all at once, and not in the same order they disappeared.
Statistics Canada reported July 10 that more than 950,000 jobs were added in the country in June. While only a small fraction of the three million or so positions that were lost as lockdowns were imposed in March and April, the number represents a record increase as those measures are lifted.
“There’s a lot of places that are still hiring amidst all the doom and gloom that we’ve been experiencing over the past few months,” Carolyn Levy, president of the technologies division of staffing and recruitment agency Randstad Canada, told CTVNews.ca on Monday via telephone from Calgary.
Breaking down the numbers by industry yields clues into where the first wave of rebound hiring is taking place. More than 20 per cent of the added jobs were classified as wholesale and retail trade – with 16 per cent in accommodation and food services, 12 per cent in health care and social assistance, and eight per cent apiece in construction and manufacturing.
This suggests that the retail and restaurant workers who were among the first to be let go when their establishments were ordered to close were also among the first to be hired back when limited activity was allowed to resume.
There is still a long way to go before those sectors can be back to normal, though. In food services alone, it is believed that 400,000 Canadian jobs eliminated during the pandemic have yet to return. Many businesses in the broader service sector say they do not expect to ever return to pre-pandemic staffing levels.
Also notable, StatCan found, is that there were more wholesale jobs in Canada in June than there were in February, before the pandemic hit. Levy chalked this increase up to the surge in online shopping, which has left companies needing extra staff in warehouses and other parts of the supply chain.
On manufacturing, Levy said the increase could be due to companies retooling their lines to produce personal protective equipment or other items suddenly in demand due to the pandemic.
EMPLOYERS RETHINKING OLD ROLES
For the nearly 2.5 million Canadians who remain unemployed, though, knowing where hiring has recently happened only paints part of the picture. More helpful is information about where hiring is happening now.
According to the federal government’s job bank, the most in-demand jobs right now are sales associates, administrative assistants and customer service representatives, followed by truck drivers, general farm workers and light-duty cleaners.
A popular website used by job-seekers to connect with employers is seeing similar patterns. Brendon Bernard, an economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab, wrote July 7 that retail and customer service jobs are among those that saw the biggest drop in new postings on Indeed earlier in the pandemic, and have since seen some of the biggest rebounds.
“Sectors narrowing the gap relatively quickly in recent weeks include ones featuring lower-paying positions, like retail, and customer service,” he wrote.
“Areas posting roles with many mid-wage jobs have also seen noticeable bounce-backs, like construction, as well as education and instruction.”
Levy said that some employers are also creating new roles as they look to respond to their customers’ needs during and after the pandemic. Opportunities created by this include more positions for financial advisers, she said, as well as an even greater demand for tech workers.
Postings on Indeed for higher-paying jobs have been slower to bounce back, Bernard said. Indeed has tracked two categories where new job postings have fallen off since early May – security and public safety, and aviation.
Bernard reported that the number of new job postings on Indeed as of July 3 was 21 per cent lower than it had been one year earlier. That gap had been as large as 70 per cent in mid-April. Smaller provinces, which have generally been less affected by COVID-19, have kept job posting levels closer to where they were in 2019 than larger provinces.
Levy said she is seeing employers increasingly show interest in hiring for temporary contract positions. This benefits them because it allows them to avoid making long-term commitments in an uncertain environment, she said, but can also be good for those looking for jobs because it gives them a chance to find work that they might not otherwise have.
“Companies have had to take a step back and start to reimagine how they have to work in this new normal,” she said.
“Businesses have to look at what do we need to do to reskill, what do we need to do to retrain, given the way we operated our business four months ago is not the way it’s going to be … from now on.”
Demands for government intervention in Air Canada labour talks could negatively affect airline competition in Canada, the CEO of travel company Transat AT Inc. said.
“The extension of such an extraordinary intervention to Air Canada would be an undeniable competitive advantage to the detriment of other Canadian airlines,” Annick Guérard told analysts on an earnings conference call on Thursday.
“The time and urgency is now. It is time to restore healthy competition in Canada,” she added.
Air Canada has asked the federal government to be ready to intervene and request arbitration as early as this weekend to avoid disruptions.
Comments on the potential Air Canada pilot strike or lock out came as Transat reported third-quarter financial results.
Guérard recalled Transat’s labour negotiations with its flight attendants earlier this year, which the company said it handled without asking for government intervention.
The airline’s 2,100 flight attendants voted 99 per cent in favour of a strike mandate and twice rejected tentative deals before approving a new collective agreement in late February.
As the collective agreement for Air Transat pilots ends in June next year, Guérard anticipates similar pressure to increase overall wages as seen in Air Canada’s negotiations, but reckons it will come out “as a win, win, win deal.”
“The pilots are preparing on their side, we are preparing on our side and we’re confident that we’re going to come up with a reasonable deal,” she told analysts when asked about the upcoming negotiations.
The parent company of Air Transat reported it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31. The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
It attributed reduced revenues to lower airline unit revenues, competition, industry-wide overcapacity and economic uncertainty.
Air Transat is also among the airlines facing challenges related to the recall of Pratt & Whitney turbofan jet engines for inspection and repair.
The recall has so far grounded six aircraft, Guérard said on the call.
“We have agreed to financial compensation for grounded aircraft during the 2023-2024 period,” she said. “Alongside this financial compensation, Pratt & Whitney will provide us with two additional spare engines, which we intend to monetize through a sell and lease back transaction.”
Looking ahead, the CEO said she expects consumer demand to remain somewhat uncertain amid high interest rates.
“We are currently seeing ongoing pricing pressure extending into the winter season,” she added. Air Transat is not planning on adding additional aircraft next year but anticipates stability.
“(2025) for us will be much more stable than 2024 in terms of fleet movements and operation, and this will definitely have a positive effect on cost and customer satisfaction as well,” the CEO told analysts.
“We are more and more moving away from all the disruption that we had to go through early in 2024,” she added.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
