economy
ON THE MEND AND BACK TOWARDS TREND Metro Vancouver’s labour market has been resilient over the past year but is still a ways away from its pre-pandemic potential.
The most singular measure of the health of the labour market—and arguably of the economy—is the unemployment rate. When it’s low it usually means everyone who wants to be working is working, companies are hiring, wages are rising, and the economy is growing; when it’s high, the opposite of all of that is usually true. And things were indeed going very well in Metro Vancouver in early 2020, with the unemployment oscillating healthfully between 4-5%. Subsequently, as employment fell by 18% between February and May, the
unemployment rate surged to 14.6% over the same period—not good. The unemployment rate has fallen dramatically since then, sitting at 7.7% in February. And though the number of discouraged workers in this province recently reached an all-time high (these are people who have dropped out of the labour force due to lack of success looking for work, and thus are not counted in official unemployment statistics), signs are on the whole pointing to a labour market that will hopefully soon resemble the one that was running so smoothly one year ago.
AFTER THIS LAST UNEMPLOYMENT RATE SPIKE, THE ECONOMY NEEDS CPR
16%
16
14.6%
THE GREAT SUPPRESSION
14%
14
12%
12
10%
10
9.1%
8%
8
7.7%
6%
6
4%
4
2%
2
0%
0
2008
2009 2010 2011
2012 2013 2014 2015
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
2021
DISCOURAGED WORKERS BC
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE METRO VANCOUVER
DATA: METRO VANCOUVER UNEMPLOYMENT RATE ADJUSTED FOR SEASONALITY; BC DISCOURAGED WORKER ESTIMATE UNADJUSTED FOR SEASONALITY, 12-MO MOVING AVERAGE SOURCE: LABOUR FORCE SURVEY, STATISTICS CANADA
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