New immigrants most affected by job disruptions due to pandemic

The pandemic has led to a decline in employment for a large part of the Canadian population, but even more so for recent immigrants.

During the sharp economic downturn in March and April 2020, the Canadian labour market lost 3 million jobs. From May to July, as activity picked up, 1.7 million jobs were regained.

According to a Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey released on August 20, recent immigrants were more likely than the Canadian-born to lose their jobs in March and April. When the pandemic hit, the transition to unemployment increased for all three groups included in the study: immigrants who had arrived in Canada within the last 10 years, immigrants who had arrived in Canada more than 10 years ago, and those born in Canada.

However, the increase in the rate of people who transitioned to unemployment was much more significant for recent immigrants, reaching a peak of 17.3% compared to 13.5% for the Canadian-born and long-term immigrants during the month of April.

Recent immigrant women experienced the largest increase in the rate of transition to unemployment during the economic downturn. Nearly 20% of recent immigrant women employed in March did not have a job in April, compared to 13% of Canadian-born women. This gap narrowed to only 2 percentage points in June and virtually disappeared during July.

According to the survey, from February 2019 to April 2020, all three groups experienced similar transition-to-work rates, with recent immigrants even recording slightly higher rates than the Canadian-born in most months.

Canadian labour market recovery is strong

Data released in July and August by Statistics Canada show that the initial recovery of employment in Canada since the restrictions were lifted has been stronger than in previous economic downturns.

According to a recent Labour Force Survey, about 55% of the 3 million jobs lost since April have been recovered as of July.

Some 419,000 jobs were added in July, an increase of 2.4% over the previous month. This follows a 5.8% growth rate in June. Results from Statistics Canada’s recent surveys of employment, payroll and hours of work show that the economic slowdown due to the coronavirus is bouncing back strongly after a significant decline in previous months.