Using the Labour Force Survey, this paper looks at employment differences for immigrants and Canadians between the ages of 20 and 64 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results suggest a larger increase in the rate of transition to non-employment for immigrants, especially recent female immigrants. The authors associate these results with shorter job tenure and over-representation…Read More

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…Read More

This report highlights the economic effects and the recovery outlook of the COVID-19 pandemic for Atlantic Canada. Within the first two months of the pandemic, the economic impact in Atlantic Canada was similar to the rest of Canada. However, the region began recovering faster. By July 2020, it had regained 61% of all jobs lost,…Read More

The modes of transportation used by Canadian workers have certainly changed since the COVID-19 outbreak. The number of commuters has dropped considerably in order to contain the spread of the virus. To examine these changes over the course of the pandemic, Statistics Canada conducted a third wave of the Canadian Perspectives Survey Series (CPSS) from…Read More

Recent evidence from the United States shows that recessions can promote automation and the reallocation of productive resources critical to long-run aggregate productivity growth. This study presents evidence suggesting similar results for Canada by constructing industry-level measures of worker exposure to COVID-19 and the fraction of routine employment using the Labour Force Survey (LFS). Results…Read More

This release by Statistics Canada presents the key findings of a special COVID-19–related data collection about childcare and family characteristics. The data was collected by crowdsourcing and should not be extrapolated to Canada in general since it is not a representative sample. Information is available by household characteristics such as single-parent households, parents working outside…Read More

Young people have been disproportionately affected by the economic slowdown resulting from measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. This has implications for high school and post-secondary graduates planning to enter the job market soon. To understand these implications, Statistics Canada estimated five-year potential earnings losses under five different youth unemployment rates. In the case…Read More

This report discusses the impact of the pandemic and resulting recession on the labour market outcomes of women. A direct relationship exists between job losses and reduced hours worked among women and the increasing childcare responsibilities faced by families. First, in this recession the hardest hit industries were female dominated, unlike past recessions when male-dominated…Read More

Using Labour Force Survey data on hours worked, the authors find that, on average, Canadians are working more hours in June compared to April (when hours worked were at their lowest point). However, women with young children are not returning to their pre-shutdown level of hours worked as quickly as their male counterparts, Canadians with…Read More