Canada's job market in October: not too shabby

Statistics Canada reported this morning that employment across the country grew by 84,000 in October, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged at 8.9 percent. This was a better than expected outcome, and came despite the imposition of new restrictions all across the country as the second wave of the pandemic set in. 

The media, predictable as ever, opted to focus on the fact that this was the slowest growth in employment since May. This headline on the CBC website, for example, refers to "only 84,000 jobs", even though that pace, if it lasted for a full year, would see employment grow by a full million jobs, something that has never even come close to actually happening. However, it must be acknowledged that there are still 630,000 fewer persons employed in Canada than there were before the pandemic hit, with a further 430,000 working less than 50 percent of their normal hours.   

The details of the report were generally favourable. Full-time jobs accounted for 69,000 of the monthly increase. Although there remains a hard core of over 800,000 part-time workers who would prefer to have full-time positions, total hours worked across the economy grew faster than employment, as underutilization in the labour force continues to edge lower. Three sectors -- wholesale trade, professional services and educational services -- have now surpassed their pre-COVID employment levels.  

It is inevitable that employment growth will slow further in the coming months. The "easy" part of the bounce-back from the first wave of the pandemic is over, and it is only now becoming clear which sectors of the economy may never regain their pre-pandemic levels of activity and employment. Moreover, new restrictions are now in place across most of Canada, although as StatsCan notes, these are more targeted than the restrictions imposed in March, and should thus have a smaller impact on employment. A fresh round of outright job losses may be avoided between now and year-end, but employment will not complete its return to pre-pandemic levels until a vaccine becomes widely available.