economy
JOBLESS NO MORE FOR FEWER Metro Vancouver’s plummeting unemployment rate reflects a significant reduction in the number of unemployed people in the region, with many implications.
As unemployment spiked during the early months of the pandemic, it reflected, well, a spike in the number of unemployed persons. While this might seem unworthy of stating, it is indeed possible during more stable economic periods for the unemployment rate to rise as the number of unemployed persons falls, and vice versa. Without getting into the weeds on this, it’s because the unemployment rate is calculated with the labour force as the denominator; consequently, the rate of unemployment is influenced by how many people decide to enter the labour force
(which tends to nudge the unemployment rate up) or leave it (nudging the rate down). When gauging the health of the labour market it’s therefore useful to consider how many real-life unemployed people there are at a point in time. Here the news is also good for Metro Vancouver, with the 82,000 unemployed persons in January down 63% from the pandemic high of 218,700, and now only 16% higher than the February 2020 level. That we’re seeing a reduction in the number of people that want to work but can’t find work is certainly a positive trend.
UNIMPRESSIVE UNEMPLOYMENT (IT’S A GOOD THING)
250,000
218,700
200,000
143,300
150,000
101,300
100,000
70,400
82,000
50,000
0
Feb Mar Apr May
Jul Jun Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Jul Jun Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
Feb Jan
UNEMPLOYED DIFFERENCE VS. FEB ‘
NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED
DATA: NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED PERSONS MONTHLY, METRO VANCOUVER
SOURCE: LABOUR FORCE SURVEY, STATISTICS CANADA
6
rennie.com
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online