Future of work
A curated resource of recent research on trends shaping Canada's labour market.
By looking at two measures of economic activity, this paper analyzes the impact on Canadian businesses of economic restrictions and unprecedented government intervention adopted during COVID-19. The measures used are 1) hours worked by employees engaged in production and 2) the real output. The analysis shows that hours worked declined in Q1 2020 for both the goods and services sectors. The decline occurred in businesses of all sizes for the goods sector. For the service sector, however, the decline occurred in small- and medium-sized firms, with an increase for large firms. Moreover, the real output decline for Canadian businesses was 1.7%, with the service sector enduring a greater drop compared to the goods sector.