According to a research bulletin published by the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute in August, the overwhelming majority of new jobs in Canada’s economy since the start of the COVID pandemic were created by the government.
“We find that the government sector accounts for a large majority, 86.7 percent, of all net new jobs created since the start of the pandemic,” the Fraser Research Institute said. “Meanwhile, there has been almost no net job creation in the private sector (including self-employment).”
“This despite the fact that the government sector represents just 21.8 percent of jobs in the economy,” the economic study said.
The study alluded to reports by the media and politicians which boasted about Canada’s “historically low” unemployment rate, and the authors even cited a tweet by Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, in their references.
The study, however, “reveals a more complicated picture,” the authors said.
“Once we adjust for population growth over this period, [which is] 2.7 percent for individuals over the age of 15], Canada’s private sector job performance is even less impressive,” the authors stated. “The share of adults above the age of 15 employed in the private sector has fallen from 49.3 to 48.2 percent during this time.”
“Net jobs increased in the private sector by just 0.4 percent between February 2020 and July 2020 compared to an increase in net jobs of 9.4 percent in the government sector,” the study concluded.
The authors of the study are Milagros Palacios, the Director of the Addington Centre for Measurement at the Fraser Institute, and Ben Eisen, a senior fellow in Fiscal and Provincial Prosperity Studies at the Fraser Institute.
“It is clear that the government sector is disproportionately driving Canada’s labour market recovery,” the study said. “Private sector total employment is now only slightly above pre-pandemic levels and once an adjustment is made for population growth, private sector employment is in fact lower than it was in February 2020.”
In their study, the authors reference statistics from the 2022 Labour Force Survey by Statistics Canada.
