In a medical sense, COVID-19, as highly contagious as it is, can be thought of as the great leveller. No one has immunity, and we face the health risk of this virus with a sense of our common humanity.
But in a socio-economic sense, it is not as contagious. The jobs some of us hold give us an economic immunity, and we face the economic risk of this virus with a very different sense of our interconnectedness.
Continue reading “COVID-19 is not the great leveller, it’s the great revealer”
On Thursday, April 9th Statistics Canada will release the results of the Labour Force Survey for the month of March 2020. COVID19 makes this one of the most scrutinized releases in the 75 year history of the survey, reporting as it will on jobs and unemployment during the week of March 15th to March 21st. Here’s what you need to know, and what to look for.
Continue reading “What you need to know about Statistics Canada’s survey of the labour market”
The unemployment rate in the United States fell to 5.3% in June, while the Canadian rate as of May stands at 6.8%. When Statistics Canada releases the June numbers on July 10th they are unlikely to show much improvement.
But when comparing the two countries it is important to remember that there are subtle differences in statistical methods that tend to push the Canadian statistic higher than the American. The unemployment rate in Canada would be 6.1% if it were calculated using US methods, rather than 6.8%
The gap between the two may be significant and it may grow even larger, but it is not as big as the official statistics suggest. See this 2012 post for an explanation.
Every month Statistics Canada releases employment and other labour market indicators. They are much used, much discussed, and arguably much misinterpreted. Here is a short FactBook about employment, using information from January 2005 to August 2014, clarifying some of the definitions, offering some suggestions on how to use the numbers, and highlighting some of the recent trends.
Employment Factbook using Labour Force Survey from Statistics Canada January 2005 to August 2014
There are three major messages:
“Employment is up by one million since the recession ended.”
A statement like this may indeed be a big talking point when Statistics Canada releases the results of its monthly Labour Force Survey on Friday.
While a million more people at work sounds like a lot, the Canadian population has also increased by roughly the same amount with the result that the fraction of Canadians working has been pretty well unchanged for the last five years, and has yet to return to rates before the recession.
A million is a big number, but it’s not enough to signal a complete recovery from the recession.
Continue reading “Employment in Canada is up by a million … but that is hardly enough”
Economics for public policy 