Employers
LMIC announces new Executive Director
Bindi Sawchuk, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Labour Market Information Council (LMIC) and Assistant Deputy Minister, Ministry of Post Secondary Education and Future Skills with the Government of British Columbia, today announced the appointment of Massimo Bergamini as the new Executive Director of LMIC. A seasoned association executive, Bergamini brings more than…Read More
Why aren’t women working in trades? Creating safe and inclusive workplaces for women
Bonnie Douglas, Project Manager at CCWESTT, reflects on why there are so few women in trades and what Canadian employers can do about it. Listen to this article as an audio recording It’s an ongoing challenge: female trade certificate holders consistently earn less than their male counterparts, and women represent less than 10% of certified journeypersons in Canada…Read More
Food service labour shortages in Canada: exploring average hours worked as an indicator
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the accommodation and food services sector harder than any other. Now, even as the broader economy recovers, the food services sector is facing unique challenges bringing people back to work. There have been many recent media stories suggesting food service labour shortages across Canada. Translating this anecdotal evidence into clear…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
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
COVID-19 Job Losses Concentrated Among the Lowest Earners
Employment fell by a further 1,993,800 (11%) in April, bringing total job losses to more than 3 million over the past two months. The official unemployment rate now stands at 13.0%, up from 7.8% in March. The job losses in March and April both far exceed the previous largest drop in employment recorded in the…Read More
Early Signs of the COVID-19 Impact on Canada’s Job Market
Employment fell by 1,010,700 in March in Canada – the largest drop on record –and the unemployment rate jumped to 7.8% from 5.6% in February. So say the first official statistics covering the onset of the COVID-19 crisis (see Figure 1), released today as part of the Labour Force Survey (LFS). Although these early indicators…Read More
Reconciling LMI Needs of Workers and Employers
Shared Objectives For nearly a decade before arriving at LMIC, I worked at the International Labour Organization (ILO). The ILO is a tripartite UN organization that brings together employers, workers, and governments. This tremendous forum enables different viewpoints of the labour market to come together, if not always in complete agreement. However, as I have argued…Read More