The job market was such a disaster in April that the normally by-the-book analysts at Statistics Canada had to surface an obscure indicator just to capture it.
They’re pointing to the “recent labour underutilization rate,” which StatsCan said has entrapped 37% of the workforce in its April jobs report released last week.
What it means is that almost two-fifths of us have been sidelined by the pandemic, either by reducing our work hours or losing our jobs altogether. Especially women with young children, newcomers to Canada and youth in particular. Especially workers paid by the hour, usually in low-income jobs.
We are nearing the bottom, though. Job losses could deepen in some region but, as provinces gingerly relaunch their economies, some people will gradually be able to go back to work.
Perhaps that’s what gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau licence to dream a bit about the future — setting a high, perhaps impossibly high, bar.
Day after the day, the prime minister has focused squarely on the crisis of the here and now — empathizing, introducing new measures, but sidestepping most talk about what the future would bring for fear people would forget to wash their hands and give in to the urge to socialize.
On Friday, though, he showed a glimpse of ambition, daring to dream about a “more fair and equitable country” when this is all over.
“We need to make sure that as we move forward to rebuilding and creating a more prosperous Canada in the coming months and years, we think very, very carefully” about the importance of work “being done by women and vulnerable Canadians and how we need to make sure we’re better supporting them,” he said.
Trudeau said he recognizes the need for more and better child care as a necessary starting point for a recovery. And he pushed the provinces to rethink public transit.
“These are the kinds of things that we’re going to have to think about, both in the immediate but also for the longer term to make sure that equality in this country is more than just a goal but is a concrete reality,” he said.
Given the deep inequities that the pandemic is exposing and exacerbating, he may be getting ahead of himself.
The pandemic economy has shown us how steadfastly the deck is stacked against low-income and precarious workers.
Salaried workers, according to StatsCan, have barely been touched by the lockdown. People who have been paid by the hour, on the other hand, have been pummelled.
“It’s stark,” says economics professor Mikal Skuterud, whose work at the University of Waterloo has shown that the proportion of hourly paid workers has climbed over the years and is now about 63% of the workforce. Those jobs are generally in the services sector and come with low pay and little security.
Women with young children compounded their job losses from March.
Part-timers, temp workers and those who are new to their jobs saw disproportionate losses.
Numbers crunched by economist Brendon Bernard at the job site Indeed.com show employment in low-wage jobs is down 30% compared to last year while employment in mid-wage jobs is down 20%.
High-wage occupations are down just 1.3% year over year.
There’s a chance the hourly paid workers could quickly find work again as the economy opens up, but since so many of these workers are in low-paying service jobs, they will need to be shown their health is not at stake before they take the risk of jumping back into the job market, Skuterud says.
“It’s kind of naive” to think employment will simply bounce back, he said.
On the brighter side, there are some signs that a path toward more and better child care may be within reach, at least at a political level.
Trudeau and the premiers have discussed and generally agreed upon the need to boost child-care spaces.
But, if we know anything about federal-provincial negotiations on child care in Canada, we know that such discussions drag on and on. The need is immediate, however. And, if you add social distancing to the mix, it’s hard to imagine where we will find all the caregivers and teachers required to take care of very small groups of children in the near future.
Trudeau’s announcement of an extension of the wage subsidy for struggling companies will certainly be a help in keeping employees in the workforce, bridging companies to a gentler landing on the other side of the pandemic.
But the goal of a “more fair and equal country” remains a long way off.
Heather Scoffield is a columnist for the Toronto Star.
