“Another month, another step towards recovery. But what was leaps and bounds early on, are now baby steps. Most (Canadian) industries are at levels of employment close to or above where they were prior to the pandemic, so it's not surprising advances have slowed in these areas. At the same time, those industries beaten down by the crisis have seen employment put into reverse due to targeted restrictions levied by provincial governments, specifically Quebec and Ontario. (TD Economics, Nov. 6, 2020)

“As of October, (Canadian) employment is now just 3.3% below its February level with no less than 79% of jobs lost that have now been recovered. A significant portion of workers are underutilized as shown by hours worked still being down 6.1% compared to February’s peak. It is worth mentioning that a significant portion of employees are indirectly benefiting from the wage subsidy program offered by the federal government.” (National Bank Financial, Nov. 6, 2000)  

Canada’s recently released October jobs market report was generally in line with expectations.  

With the pandemic worsening again, Canadian employment increased by a rather disappointing 84,000 (or +0.5%) in October, after recovering 378,000 jobs in September and 245,000 in August.

Nonetheless, October represented the sixth straight month that jobs increased in Canada, even though the level of employment now stands 3.3% lower than the pre-pandemic (February) level.

Unfortunately, Canada’s job market outlook is still quite awful, and there is still a long way to go to restore previous high levels of employment.

Canada’s unemployment rate in October was 8.9%, little changed from September. Most of the jobs created in October were full-time jobs that were lost during the pandemic.

The October employment increases in several industries were partially offset by a decrease of 48,000 jobs in the accommodation and food services industry, largely in Quebec.

Of course, the recent employment gains do not fully capture the damage to Canada’s workforce stemming from the pandemic recession.

 Statistics Canada data indicates that the total number of Canadian jobs lost because of the pandemic peaked at 5.5 million in April. The 5.5 million peak loss included a 3 million drop in measured employment and a 2.5 million increase in the number of workers who were absent from their jobs.  

As of October, the equivalent figure of the pandemic related job losses declined to about 1.1 million, which included a decline of 636,000 (-3.3%) jobs from the February peak and  433,000 (+53.7%) Canadians who were employed but working less than half their usual hours.

As a result, even though there has been a major employment recovery since April, the Canadian job market is still far below previous peak levels. As is also the case in the US, Canadian hiring plans going forward are very modest at best and require the confidence that a reliable vaccine will soon emerge to boost hiring decisions. 

Despite this doom and gloom perspective, Canada's job market is still slightly healthier than the American. For example, as of October, total US employment was 5.5% below year-ago levels, while the comparable figure for Canada is only 3.1%.

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Canada’s Unemployment Rate Continues To Decline From Its May Peak

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