Canada's job market recovery from COVID-19 better than the US

Canada’s job market recovery from COVID-19 compared with that of the US is now observed to be faster and better. Even though both countries are yet to come out of the COVID-19 crisis, for whatever improvement has been made, the competition between both countries has been quite close.

But looking at the June levels of recovery, one can see that Canada has inched ahead of the USA. This trend was assisted by the reduction in the number of cases in Canada, while new cases increased in the US.

Job additions

In June 2020, Canada added 952,900 jobs simultaneously to the easing of travel restrictions. Canada’s growth in job creation was at 378,000 in September 2020.

The US registered a job addition of 4.8 million jobs in June 2020, and 661,000 in September 2020. While reading this statistic, the fact that US has close to 9 times the population of Canada has to be considered.

No. of COVID-19 deaths

The total death from the pandemic reported in the US was 220,000, while Canada had 201,000 deaths. The death rate per million in the US is 670, while the same is 265 in Canada.

The method of calculating employment rate is different in Canada and US. When Statistics Canada adjusted the employment rate data for the US method, Canada had 2.7% lower points in September 2020 compared to February 2020. The same reduction in employment rate was 4.5% in the US.

The better scenario that could be seen in the case of the US could be attributed to the lesser impact of the summer wave of the pandemic felt in some parts of the country.

The overall numbers in job growth could also have been influenced by the variation in the statistical treatment of temporary layoffs vs worker absence. The difficulty in collecting employment data owing to the COVID-19 pandemic has also been a factor of influence in determining the job growth trend.

Added to this is the fact that the rate of response to Canada’s Labor Force Survey is much lesser from 2019. At the same time, even after an initial fall in responses from the US Current Population Survey, there has been a rebound in the later stages of the pandemic.

Canada’s job market recovery has been stronger and has covered more scope. 11 out of 15 industries in Canada are considerably closer to levels before the pandemic. These industries include scientific and technical services, education, and utilities.

At the same time, in the US, none of the industries has been able to recover like it happened in Canada. But it should be noted that the speed at which industries like warehousing, transportation, and construction have returned employment has been more rapid than Canada’s.

But Canada immigration has offered much better policies like encouraging parents to come back into the workforce and parental leave programs. Policies like paid vacation have helped keep affected Canadians engaged with their employer during the pandemic.

If you are looking to Study, Work, Visit, Invest or Migrate to Canada, talk to Y-Axis, the World’s No.1 Immigration & Visa Company.

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