Success Stories

News

Employment falls by 200,000 in January

February 4, 2022

After gains for several months, Canadian employment fell by 200,000 (one per cent) in January, spread across both part-time (down 117,000 or 3.3 per cent) and full-time (down 83,000 or 0.5 per cent) work.

All of the decline was among private sector employees, says Statistics Canada, which also cited the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, leading many jurisdictions to implement stricter public health measures such as capacity limits or closures.

Large losses were seen in accommodation and food services; and information, culture and recreation industries.

“Rising COVID-19 cases didn’t only dent the job numbers but also impacted work in other ways: total hours worked fell at over twice the rate of employment decline. This partly reflected the pandemic directly, with the number of workers absent due to illness and disability jumping above typical January levels,” says Brendon Bernard, senior economist at Indeed.

“The setback to Canada’s employment recovery doesn’t come as a surprise. The focus now is on the path forward. With rules around indoor dining relaxing in some provinces, some of the jobs lost are likely to return quickly. A decent share of January’s net employment decline showed up in a jump in temporary unemployment, indicating that at least some affected workers expect to return to their previous positions.”

Source: HR Reporter
  Click to chat