Strong job creation echoed the end of government income support programs. Results: the labor market has, in the end, recovered its losses created by the pandemic and by the government response to the health crisis.
Statistics Canada data for November indicates that the level of employment is up 186,000, or 1%, from that seen before COVID-19. For its part, the unemployment rate, at 6%, is reduced to 0.3 percentage point from what it was before the pandemic. It stood at 5.7% in February 2020 after hitting a record low of 5.4% in May 2019. At 4.5% in Quebec, the rate is identical to that observed before the pandemic.
And this recovery measured in the statistics does not hide a discouragement that would have led to a reduction in the working population. The activity rate, which measures the proportion of the population in employment or looking for work, stood at 65.3%, almost the same as in February 2020 (65.5%). The employment rate, or the number of jobs in relation to the population aged 15 and over, rose to 61.4%, four tenths of a percentage point from its pre-pandemic level. Finally, the total hours worked returned for the first time to its level observed in February 2020.
Labor shortage
In short, this labor market performance, which coincides with the end of the Canada Economic Stimulus Benefit, increasingly shines the spotlight on the imbalances staged by the sectoral labor shortage.
Total unemployment stood at 1.24 million last month, up 98,000 from February 2020. And the adjusted unemployment rate – which includes people who wanted a job but don’t have one. sought one – reached 7.8%, up 0.3 percentage point from its February 2020 level.
And while the labor underutilization rate fell to 12.4% in November to its lowest level since the start of the pandemic, the number of people looking for a employment remained up by 113,000 (+ 10.9%) from February 2020, and the number of people who worked less than half their usual hours remained high, at 155,000 or over 19.1% of its pre-pandemic level.
However, “the data on job vacancies for September and the results of the Labor Force Survey for November suggest that the labor markets are increasingly similar to those observed since the summer of 2019, when the Unemployment in Canada has reached a record low, as average wages have risen after a prolonged period of weak growth and the number of job vacancies has edged up, writes Statistics Canada. These conditions will probably contribute to worsen existing imbalances, or to create new ones ”.
With the record number of vacancies in September, employers are currently banking on increased compensation and benefits to attract sought-after candidates. But nothing dramatic so far. In terms of wages, growth over two years was 5.2% when taking into account variations in the composition of employment by occupation and duration, and 7.7% if ‘we do not take it into account, calculates the federal agency. Year on year, the median hourly wage in Quebec was up 3.2% in November, to $ 26.04, said economists from the Mouvement Desjardins.
However, the increase prioritizes recruitment difficulties rather than employee retention. Based on three-month moving averages, across all industries, from November 2019 to November 2021, average salaries grew at a faster rate among new hires (+ 10%) than among employees in their current job (+ 6.4%), says Statistics Canada.
In the sector particularly affected by the pandemic, accommodation and food services, the average salaries of new employees increased 8.5% compared to two years earlier, while those of experienced employees increased. by 2.3%. In health care and social assistance, “which posted some of the highest levels of job vacancies in the summer of 2021, the overall average hourly wage of newly hired nurses increased by 20, 5% in the two years ending in November, while that of nurses who had been employed for more than 18 months increased by 2.3% ”.
Employers are also revising the education requirements for certain positions, “perhaps with the intention of providing compensatory training on the job.” Statistics Canada shows that from November 2019 to November 2021, overall employment in occupations that usually require a university education increased by 490,000 (+ 12.3%). Meanwhile, the number of workers holding these types of jobs but having a high school diploma or less increased by 73,000 (+ 43.4%). In other words, “among workers who recently started a job that usually requires a university education, the proportion of them with a high school diploma or less rose to 9.6% in November, up compared to 4% in November 2019 ”.