So, too, has it terrible lack workers in certain industries, with the help of wanted signs posted in the windows of countless restaurants and grocery stores. Canadian statistics analyzed by CBC News bear this out, showing a migration among workers across sectors — from jobs in the service and food industries, to potentially more lucrative positions in fields such as technology, finance and real estate. Amanda Ryan, who lives in Moncton, NB, ran her own cleaning business until last year when she made the decision to become a realtor. “I had a cleaning business for a long time and my body was starting to feel the effects of cleaning all the time,” said Ryan, a mother of two. “I was trying to create something that I could do when I couldn’t clean anymore and I thought, knowing the houses and being able to build my own business, doing real estate would probably be successful.” A year later, Ryan said the job was challenging — but also rewarding. And paying better. Such career changes have taken place amid a tighter labor market, resulting in staff shortages in the sectors left behind by workers. Overall, of Canada unemployment rate remains at 4.9 percent — the lowest level since 1970. Examining the data also reveals a longer-term shift in the country’s labor market, driven not only by the transformative past two years, but by demographic changes that have been underway for decades. Here are five charts to help illustrate Canada’s changing job landscape: The chart above shows the dramatic shift of workers toward some sectors, such as public administration and real estate, and away from others, such as food services. Fabian Lange, a labor economist at McGill University in Montreal, who reviewed the CBC charts, said it appears that many workers are climbing the “job ladder” to industries with better pay and benefits — a phenomenon he’s seeing in the United States. “We’re seeing that on an individual level. We’re seeing people from lodging and food services, where they’re not going straight into finance, insurance, real estate, but they’ll turn to maybe manufacturing or…maybe healthcare consulting,” he said. “They’re going to move into positions that are higher up the pay scale, which are better quality jobs. And those in higher quality jobs tend to move higher up that so-called job scale.” Amid this tight labor market, hourly wages offered rose significantly in some sectors — such as technical and information services, as shown in the chart above. Meanwhile, wages in other sectors, such as manufacturing, food services and retail, continued to lag. In fact, taking into account the rising cost of living, some of these sectors have seen their average wage offered drop during the pandemic, Lange said. Persistently low wages in some industries are surprising, he said, at least from a supply and demand perspective. “The labor market is tight right now, and what that suggests is that this is a seller’s market,” Lange said. “Employees should be in a strong position in this labor market, and we should see that as compensation. And we haven’t seen that many [increase] in compensation”. The data also suggests, as shown in the chart above, that a growing number of workers are leaving their jobs because they are dissatisfied — and now have other options in the labor market. Almost twice as many workers left their jobs for this reason last month than in July 2021, far outstripping other reported reasons such as going to school or retiring. Brittany Feor, an economist at the Labor Market Information Council, said encouraging young people, such as students, with higher wages and part-time jobs could help address labor shortages, as could increasing immigration. “Enticing some of these people out of retirement to get back into the workforce is another solution,” he said. In many ways, Lange said, the tight labor market looks like what was already expected before March 2020 — although the pandemic appears to have pushed some older people out of the labor market earlier, as shown in the chart above. “I think this has to do with the pandemic, in the sense that people have retired proactively … so they may have had a plan to retire when they’re 63, but the pandemic hits in March 2020,” he said. “They’re leaving work, maybe they’re afraid to go back to work at 61,” Lang said. “A year later, the economy is recovering, but they’ve decided … they’re just going to retire and move their retirement forward.” However, the main factor reducing the labor market participation rate, which can be seen in the chart above, is the country’s changing demographics. ONE recent BMO report looked at the impact of the country’s aging population on the workforce and pointed out that this trend began long before the pandemic. “It is important to note that this continued slow decline is almost entirely a function of underlying demographics – namely a rapidly increasing share of the population in retirement age groups – and less of people leaving the labor force for other reasons,” the report said . “While this demographic drain on the workforce has been coming apace, the pandemic appears to have created at least some additional disruption through earlier retirements, lifestyle changes, and job changes.” The report concludes that, in the long term, the “demographic decline in labor supply will continue” in the coming years.
