Unemployment rate drops to 10.9%, but recovery in full-time jobs remains weak.
The re-opening of the Canadian economy, though happening in fits and starts, continues.
According to Stats Canada, 419,000 jobs were added in July.
That brought the unemployment rate down to 10.9%, from 12.3% in June.
Canada is still 1.3 million jobs away from where we were before the pandemic hit.
Additionally, Stats Canada says that if they included people who wanted to work but had not sought employment, the unemployment rate would have been 13.8%.
One area of concern is that a large portion of the job gains were part-time. 345,000 part-time jobs were added, compared to 73,000 full-time jobs.
Notably, part-time jobs are 5% off their pre-crisis levels, while full-time jobs are 7.5% off.
This could be a long-term area of concern.
For decades, Canada has been shedding good, secure jobs in areas like manufacturing and homegrown production, with those jobs often replaced by far-less secure, lower paying employment.
After the 2008 financial crisis, many jobs were recovered, but job quality went down.
If the same pattern repeats itself as Canada recovers from the CCP Virus downturn, we will see a continuing of the trend where nearly all economic gains are concentrated among a small handful of elites, while the vast majority of Canadians are left stagnating or even worse off than before.
Spencer Fernando
Photo – YouTube
