Amid the wreckage of job markets across the country, the capital region on the surface appeared to hold up well in May.
While Statistics Canada reported on Friday that our jobless rate jumped to 8.4 per cent compared to 6.9 per cent in April, that was considerably below the 14 per cent plus unemployment rates estimated for Canada’s three largest cities.
However, a closer look reveals our job market really isn’t much stronger.
It’s a matter of what’s being measured. Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are sufficiently big to permit a May-only sample by Statcan’s surveyors. Ottawa-Gatineau is not. In order to smooth out the inevitable fluctuations of a relatively small sample of households in the capital region, Statcan blends the most recent three months together.
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Since the March survey took place shortly before COVID-19 related layoffs began in earnest, Friday’s blended numbers for Ottawa-Gatineau include one normal month and two weak ones. And that’s made a huge difference in the reported jobless rate.
To get a better idea of what’s happening in the capital region, consider how things would look if we roughly matched the experience of the three big cities.
Between February and May, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver collectively shed 1.2 million jobs while their combined labour force (which includes people looking for work) shrank by half a million — representing net declines of 16.5 per cent and nearly 7 per cent respectively. (These numbers are adjusted for seasonal influences so they can be compared month to month.)
Assuming Ottawa-Gatineau’s job market weakened at the same pace, this translates to a loss of 128,000 jobs along with 54,000 fewer people in the labour force. Result: 109,000 unemployed in a workforce of 757,000 — for a jobless rate of 14.4 per cent.
This lines up with the May jobless rates for Toronto (15.4 per cent), Montreal (15.2 per cent) and Vancouver (14.1 per cent).
Of course, the capital region’s economy has some important advantages that might have slowed the reduction in employment somewhat, most notably a disproportionately large public sector and some very strong tech firms. Combined, the latter two sectors account for 30 per cent of the region’s workforce — and their employment levels appear to have held up throughout the pandemic.
As in other cities, however, the pandemic has hit key sectors here with exceptional force. Overall, Statcan reported that Ottawa-Gatineau’s employment collapsed to 695,700 in May — down nearly 73,000 from the pre-pandemic month of February. Again, this almost certainly severely understates the actual job loss because it’s a three-month blended average. Data for industry sectors, in addition, are unadjusted for seasonal influences. Nevertheless, the industry snapshot for May offers insight into how physical distancing has affected different parts of our economy.
As you might expect, hotels and restaurants have seen the deepest declines in employment, slumping from 45,500 jobs in February to 22,400 in May, a drop of 51 per cent. More than 20,000 workers in wholesaling and retailing lost their jobs over the same period, representing a decline of 20.4 per cent.
Most other sectors suffered significantly as well. More than 5,000 jobs disappeared in finance, insurance and real estate, a drop of 18 per cent while the number of people providing professional services fell by 6,100 to 67,400. Even public administration witnessed a decline of 6,800 jobs (3.8 per cent), but this was very nearly offset by the net gain of 5,500 jobs in high-tech over the three month period.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
