Blog
“Stay in School!”: Is More Education Actually Better?
“Stay in school!” is the rallying cry of many Canadian parents who see education as the key to improving their children’s standard of living. In fact, more education is generally associated with higher salaries and better working conditions. It is also linked to a wide range of other benefits, including increasing a country’s economic prosperity.…Read More
Volatile Employment in 2020 for Jobs With Lower Educational Requirements
The year 2020 has been a volatile one for labour markets—massive job losses and reduced working hours have affected millions of Canadians, particularly in the spring when lockdown measures were first introduced. As we have noted in previous blogs, these impacts have not been evenly spread across sectors of the labour force, having hit low…Read More
LMI: Alone, we can go fast—but together, we can go far
On November 25, 2020, the Government of Canada (GC) released a report titled Canada – A learning nation: A skilled, agile workforce ready to shape the future. The report outlines five priorities, starting with providing access to relevant, reliable, timely labour market information and tools so all Canadians can make informed learning and training decisions.…Read More
Part-Time and Full-Time Employment Among Immigrants: A Tale of Two Recoveries
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, LMIC has been analyzing the emerging data on job loss and recovery. Previous LMIC blogs have shown, for example, that immigrants have experienced greater employment losses than Canadian-born workers, and that the recovery has been slowest for female immigrants. Building on that work, we now examine employment recovery among full-time and…Read More
Employment Recovery Lags for Low Earners
In August 2020, employment increased by another 246,000 jobs (+1.4%) to bring total employment in the month to nearly 97% of its February level. As noted by Statistics Canada’s data release, low-earning workers suffered larger initial job losses and are now facing a weaker recovery. Much of this is because low-earning workers are concentrated in…Read More
Strength in Numbers: LMIC, MDB Insight and Vicinity Jobs Harness Big Data
The idea of using online job postings to track labour market trends is not new. Vicinity Jobs started doing this in 2006, in collaboration with Canadian economic development professionals. Since the internet is the go-to place for employers to connect with job seekers, this concept makes perfect sense. The information that employers publish to attract…Read More
Immigrant Employment in Sectors Most Affected by COVID-19
Immigrants have suffered greater job losses during the COVID-19 pandemic than Canadian-born workers. Our recent blog post illustrates that employment dropped, in relative terms, for landed immigrants at nearly twice the rate of their Canadian-born counterparts. In addition, since April the recovery has been slower for immigrants. Data from July show that among prime aged…Read More
Canadian Immigrants and COVID-19 Employment Impacts
In recent years, labour force growth in Canada has been driven by international immigration and older Canadian-born workers staying in the workforce longer. By 2031, an estimated 80% of Canada’s labour force growth will come from immigration as larger, older cohorts of Canadians retire and fertility levels remain below the rate of replacement. Although immigrant…Read More
Key Measures of Economic Recovery: Employment and Hours Worked
In monitoring the economic recovery as pandemic restrictions lift, it is important to look at several labour market indicators. Average hours worked is one of those key indicators. Between February and April 2020, both employment and average hours worked fell by 15%. In June, the average hours worked rose by 7% (up 2 hours per…Read More
Impacts of COVID-19 on Women Working Part-Time
The COVID-19 shutdown has resulted in massive job losses, hitting some sectors worse than others and resulting in widespread upheaval. Women workers, however, have been affected to such an extent that some economists are calling this the first “she-cession.” Between February and May 2020, women bore 57% of employment losses, and experienced higher rates of…Read More