The employment rate continues to grow in Canada, according to data from Statistics Canada’s latest Labor Force Survey (LFS).
Employment increased by 73,000 in March, an increase of 0.4 percentage points from February. This increase can be explained in particular by the fact that the Canadian provinces have continued to relax health measures related to COVID-19. Thus, the requirements surrounding the reception capacities of businesses and proof of vaccination were lifted in Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and Quebec, before the week when the EPA data was collected.
Employment jumped 42,000 in the services sector and 31,000 in the goods sector. The provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island all recorded employment growth.
Women aged 55 and over and men aged 25 to 54 are among the populations that have benefited the most from the strong increase in employment, according to Statistics Canada.
Record drop in unemployment
The unemployment rate stood at 5.3% in March, a low level that had not been reached since 1976, since comparable data began to be released by Statistics Canada.
For the first time, the adjusted unemployment rate – that is, that of people who wanted a job, but did not look for one – fell back to its pre-pandemic level of 7.2%.
Hybrid work on the rise
More companies have taken advantage of the relaxation of health measures to plan the return to face-to-face work. As a result, the proportion of workers who reported performing work duties exclusively at home continued to decline in March and stood at 20.7%.
On the other hand, the hybrid working mode is increasingly popular. No less than 5.9% of workers divided their time between the office and home, the cottage or any place conducive to work, which represents an increase of 1.4 percentage points compared to February.
This form of work organization is very common in professional, scientific and technical services, but it has also been popular in finance, insurance, real estate services and rental and leasing services (+2 .9 percentage points, reaching 10.5%) as well as in information, culture and leisure.