By Vincent Papequash

Jobless Numbers

Stats Canada releases jobs data, experts weigh in

Nov 6, 2020 | 3:34 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Today Statistics Canada released the latest data from the Labour Force Survey, which is used to measure the unemployment rate. Canada added 84,000 jobs, but the unemployment rate changed little since September.

Specifically, the unemployment rate is currently at 8.9%, but it is nowhere near as low as it was this time last year. This is largely due to the economic impact of COVID-19, this year.

Stanley Mitchell, Partner at KPMG says “currently we’re trending that we’re still recovering jobs that were lost throughout the pandemic.”

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Mitchell says that the unemployment rate is calculated by dividing the number of people who are employed by the number of people in the labour force. However, he mentions that the numbers are impacted by people receiving (or, now not receiving) CERB.

Charles Scott, Lecturer at the UNBC School of Business, says “there’s been quite a bit of a debate as to whether the measure of unemployment that we use, can be used at this time.”

He elaborates that due to government wage supplements, like CERB, more people were not looking for jobs previously, which reduced the labour force used to measure unemployment rates. Now that the wage supplements are being scaled back, more people will soon be looking for work.

Cases of COVID-19 infections are also on the rise, with B.C. reporting 589 new cases today. This has the provincial and federal governments discussing second waves, and tightening restrictions once again.

Scott believes that the pandemic has changed the economy, in terms of how consumers make purchases.

He says “there’s no question that there will be a short term impact, but the real impact is in the long term.”

Scott says, “what we’re seeing is a rapid increase in how consumers buy, moving towards digital, and firms are following them. And so, a lot of jobs that are based on face-to-face interaction aren’t coming back.”