Economic recovery: Canada adds another 246,000 jobs in August
More Canadians are coming back to work throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Canada’s economic recovery is continuing.
Some 3 million jobs have been lost after lockdowns introduced across Canada in March to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
But more people now are back to work.
The outcomes of the August Labour Force Survey published on Friday show that the current easing of public health constraints has meant greater work for Canadians generally and for immigrants in particular.
In August, employment rose 1.4% for Canadians, increasing to over 5.7% of pre-COVID levels. Meanwhile, employment for landed immigrants was up 1.6percent while employment for recent immigrants was up 2.2%, an increase driven largely by the decrease in the populace of recent immigrants because of lower novice arrivals throughout the pandemic.
The vast bulk of the employment gains have been in full time positions.
Employment growth was concentrated in the services sector (+1.5percent ) as opposed to the goods producing sector.
The labor force participation rate for men is currently within 0.2% of pre-covid amounts while for women it is 1.3% below pre-covid amounts — an indication that lots of girls are engaged in non-employment related activities like child-care.
Unemployment rates remain higher for visible minorities when compared with people who are not members of a visible minority group. The national unemployment rate of 11.1% (not seasonally adjusted) compared to 17.9% for Arab, 17.6% for Black, and 16.6percent to Southeast Asian populations.
Low-wage workers and youth have employment levels just 86.0% of February levels while other workers have returned to pre-COVID amounts (99.1percent of February employment amounts ). This is completely driven by the concentration of low-wage employment in hard-hit services-producing businesses.
Therefore, there remains plenty of room for advancement. Canada still needs to recover 1.1 million jobs which have been lost since the start of the pandemic.
This new report, nevertheless, shows that Canada’s economic recovery is moving in the right direction. Along with the 246,000 jobs created in August, the following 419,000 were regained in July, and 1.2 million were recovered in May and June.
ο Reference taken from CIC news
