Public Health Measures Always Play A Vital Role In The Labor Market.
For the first time since April last year, employment in Canada has fallen by 63,000 jobs in December. The rate is equivalent to about 0.3 percent. The reason? COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in the country are impacting the labor market.
In December 2020, about 1.1 million Canadian workers were negatively affected by the economic crisis that came into prevalence to curb the spread of COVID-19. In April 2020, the number was almost 5.5 million. Part-time employment saw a fall by 2.9% or 99,000 in December. Many of those people who have lost their part-time employment are young people aged between 15 and 24 years and those aged 55 or beyond.
Self-employment has fallen by 62,000. The number of self-employed people is now the lowest it has been since the start of the pandemic – 6.8% lower than the rate observed in February.
In December, the rate of unemployment was 8.6%, almost unchanged from the rate of November at 8.5%. In February, the rate of unemployment was 5.6 percent.
For the first time since April, employment opportunities in the services-producing sector decreased. The rate has dropped by 74,000 in December. This number is greater than the overall loss in jobs in December, indicating that other sectors have experienced an increase in employment opportunities.
The loss of employment in the sector is due to tightened public health measures. The change saw industries like accommodation, food services, information, and culture and recreation impacted negatively.
In December, however, employment opportunities in manufacturing have experienced an increase of 15,000.
COVID-19 Impact on the Provincial Labor Markets
The public health measures that have been implemented in different provinces are reflected by the conditions of provincial labor markets.
Employment has gone down in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, and Prince Edward Island. The employment rate remained the same in six other provinces.
Ontario experienced a growth in the monthly average employment at 2.2% between June and November. However, in December, the employment growth was again stalled.
Employment in Quebec did not change for the third month in a row, with stringent public health measures since October. Quebec tightened its own measures even further this month by launching a province-wide curfew between 8 pm and 5 am. The new rule has the potential to negatively impact Quebec’s employment.
No loss of employment was registered in territories. In Yukon, employment had increased by 800 people in 2020’s fourth quarter. On the other hand, employment in the Northwest Territories has increased by 1,300. In Nunavut, the employment rate remained steady.
Canadians Job-hunting in a Pandemic
The labor underutilization rate was at 17.1 percent in December almost unchanged from November. The rate has been decreasing since April when it was 36.1%. This rate tells us the proportion of individuals who are in the potential labor force, but are unemployed or employed but working almost less than half of their usual working hours. Some include individuals who need/want a job but are not actively looking for one.
About 41.2% of labor underutilization was formed by those seeking employment opportunities. Another 36.4% were not unemployed but were putting in less than the usual hours.
Those who wanted a job but were not searching for one made up 14.3%. The rest had been temporarily laid off or were looking to start a new job in the future.
An Increasing Number of People Working From Home
One of the main impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic has had, is the increasing number of people who have been working from home. This is to balance employment along with health and safety.
Working from home is easily possible in industries that do not require people to visit work. Examples include the insurance, finance, rental, real estate, leasing, and the public administration industries.
The proportion of individuals working from home has decreased from its peak of 41.6% in April to 25.6% in September.
Since COVID-19 public health measures were tightened as a response to the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, the percentage of those working from home has again gone up to 28.6% even in December.
In occupations that require physical proximity, such as in the accommodation and food services industry, the option of working from home is almost impossible.
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