We Still Need Stimulus

Canada's employment numbers for February looked pretty good. But, Heather Scoffield writes, the devil is in the details:

With 259,000 new jobs in February, many of them in the sectors that have been hit repeatedly by the pandemic, there is good reason for solace.

We are still short 600,000 jobs though, compared to the glory days of February 2020. Plus, an additional 400,000 people are working less than half their usual hours.

Measured another way, Statistics Canada estimates that there are about 3.4 million people today who are unemployed, not working but want to work, or are not getting enough hours. That’s a million more “underutilized” people than a year ago.

And many of those "underutilized" people are going to have a hard time finding jobs:

Young workers, especially women, can’t seem to catch much of a break, mainly because their jobs in accommodation, food services and retail have been the hardest hit. Will those jobs ever return in full?

Self-employment is in a dismal state. The number of self-employed workers didn’t change much in February despite gains in many other areas of the economy, and the number of hours those self-employed workers are putting in has declined 11.8 per cent compared to a year ago. That’s compared to just 1.6 per cent for other employees.

Many small businesses say they are on the brink and fear they won’t last the pandemic, meaning those jobs won’t return in the same way, even with widespread vaccination.

Long-term unemployment receded in February by 49,000 people but from a high of 512,000 in January. These people will have a tough time getting back into the workforce as their skills atrophy and their experience grows stale.

The pandemic has created a lot of pent-up demand. But the federal government is still going to have to spend money to make sure that all of Canada's workers can take advantage of that demand.

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