Job Market: 221,500 Jobs Destroyed Across Ontario In One Year
221,500
...is the exact number of jobs lost in Ontario in one year from November 2019 to November 2020. As of November 2020, 9.1% of the Ontarian active population is unemployed, within which a booming number of people are experiencing long-term unemployment.
The Ontarian labour market slowly recovering, but...
It can be seen with the data provided by the below table that jobs were really impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, the strong decrease in jobs observed in Ontario between February and May 2020 can be directly related with the restriction measures taken in spring by the government, with all the economy slowing down all of a sudden.
April 2020 is the month when is registered the strongest decline in the number of jobs in Ontario:
- Indeed, this number goes from 7,152,300 jobs in March 2020 to 6,463,100 jobs in April 2020
- This represents a total of 689,200 jobs lost in only one month !
- An overall 9.6% of all the Ontario jobs were lost during this only month.
| Months | Total number of jobs in Ontario | Change rate |
|---|---|---|
| Nov. 2019 | 7,525,300 | / |
| Dec. 2019 | 7,542,400 | + 0.23% |
| Jan. 2020 | 7,558,300 | + 0.21% |
| Feb. 2020 | 7,555,100 | -0.04% |
| Mar. 2020 | 7,152,300 | -5.33% |
| Apr. 2020 | 6,463,100 | -9.64% |
| May 2020 | 6,398,600 | -0.99% |
| Jun. 2020 | 6,776,500 | + 5.91% |
| Jul. 2020 | 6,927,200 | + 2.22% |
| Aug. 2020 | 7,069,000 | + 2.05% |
| Sep. 2020 | 7,236,600 | + 2.37% |
| Oct. 2020 | 7,267,200 | + 0.42% |
| Nov. 2020 | 7,303,800 | + 0.50% |
We can see the trend is starting to become positive from June 2020, where we can notice a clear growth between May and June 2020 (+5.91%). Starting in June, the employment growth rate in Ontario stay positive and remains stable in October and November 2020 (respectively +0.42% and +0.50%).
However, as of November 2020, more than 221,500 jobs are missing in Ontario in comparison with one year ago.
Unemployment: where does Ontario stand in comparison with the rest of Canada?
For both Canada and Ontario, the unemployment rate trends observed were the same during the Covid-19 crisis:
- First, a sharp rise is observed between February and May 2020. In fact, the unemployment rate increased from 8.1% for both Canada and Ontario over those 3 months. This strong increase is certainly due to the actions taken by the government during this period, with non-essential businesses shut down from March 24th and other restriction measures
- After this initial rise of the unemployment rate, the tendency appears to be reversing positively, with a progressive decline of unemployment observed from May to November 2020, for both Canada and Ontario
- With a 9.1% rate in November 2020, Ontario's employment situation is still far from recovering to its pre-Covid levels, where the rate was 'only' 5.5%. With lockdowns still going on across Ontario, the numbers should not improve in the coming months.
Unemployment rate from November 2019 to November 2020 across Canada and Ontario (Source: Statistics Canada)
It is interesting to notice that before July 2020, Ontario's unemployment rate is always lower than Canada's one. However, from July 2020 onwards, the trend reverses. Now, Ontario's unemployment rate is 0.6 point higher than Canada's, showing that the pandemic had a harder impact on Ontario's labour market.
The job market in Ontario city per city
In the below table, we observe that Peterborough is by far, the city where the unemployment rate is the highest in Ontario (11.9%) as of November 2020. On the contrary, Brantford is the city in Ontario where the unemployment rate is the lowest in November 2020 (6.6%).
| Cities of Ontario | Unemployment rate in November 2020 |
|---|---|
| Peterborough | 11.9% |
| Toronto | 10.7% |
| Windsor | 10.6% |
| Barrie | 10.6% |
| Kitchener - Cambridge - Waterloo | 9.1% |
| London | 8.4% |
| Hamilton | 8% |
| Oshawa | 7.9% |
| Grand Sudbury | 7.6% |
| Thunder Bay | 7.5% |
| Kingston | 7.2% |
| St. Catharines - Niagara | 7.2% |
| Ottawa | 7.1% |
| Guelph | 7% |
| Brantford | 6.6% |
More and more long-term unemployed people in Ontario
In November 2020, 184,600 people on average (a quarter of all unemployed people) experienced long-term unemployment - meaning they were unemployed for at least 27 weeks.
- This number is lower than what was observed in October 2020, when 190,300 long-term unemployed people were registered (meaning 5,700 long-term unemployed people less)
- However, this number is still 2.6 times higher than the one recorded in February 2020 before the Covid-19 outbreak (70,700)
- With the second wave of lockdown taken across Ontario in December, this number should unfortunately go up again in 2021.
| Months | Long-term unemployed people in Ontario | Change (month to month) |
|---|---|---|
| Nov. 2019 | 70,600 | / |
| Dec.2019 | 58,200 | - 17.6% |
| Jan. 2020 | 64,000 | + 10% |
| Feb. 2020 | 70,700 | + 10.5% |
| Mar. 2020 | 63,600 | - 10% |
| Apr. 2020 | 57,900 | - 8.9% |
| May 2020 | 67,600 | + 16.8% |
| Jun. 2020 | 67,800 | + 0.3% |
| Jul.2020 | 90,500 | + 33.5% |
| Aug. 2020 | 88,100 | - 2.7% |
| Sep. 2020 | 130,000 | + 47.6% |
| Oct. 2020 | 190,300 | + 46.4% |
| Nov. 2020 | 184,600 | - 2.9% |
Good to know
Unemployment is considered to be long-term when it equals or exceeds 27 consecutive weeks of unemployment.
The 3 cities where the unemployment rate is the highest across all Ontario
Peterborough
11.9% in November 2020
Toronto
10.7% in November 2020
Windsor and Barrie
10.6% in November 2020
The 3 cities where the unemployment rate is the lowest across all Ontario
Brantford
6.6% in November 2020
Guelph
7% in November 2020
Ottawa
7.1% in November 2020
Antoine Fruchard, insurance expert and CEO at Hellosafe.ca
“All the Canadian provinces are facing difficulties regarding their job market due to the actual pandemic situation. However, even if the jobs were particularly affected, Canada and the Ontario province are starting to rise again. Indeed, the employment rate is growing since May and it's a really good indicator for the Canadian economy. But, there's still a long way to go before we get back to the indicators of the beginning of the year 2020, since new lockdowns and restrictions measures have been taken again in December in a significant number of cities in Ontario. We can surely hope that 2021 will be a better year regarding the job market."
Our methodology
This study has been built upon data released by Statistics Canada. All of the data set out in this study was collected by the Canadian government. We tried, throughout our study, to highlight the principal trends in Canada and Ontario regarding the employment and unemployment main facts and figures. All data must be interpreted in the context of the actual pandemic and explains the discrepancy that may exist regarding previous years' data.
About Hellosafe.ca
Hellosafe.ca is a comparison platform which is shaking up the insurance market – giving you access to the best Canadian insurance deals in less than 30 seconds. Hellosafe.ca is supported and financed by Blue, an Insurtech Venture Capital firm. Blue already owns two leaders in the French insurance comparison market, Réassurez-moi and Coover. These platforms help more than 10 million people with their insurance every year. We have developed a unique comparison technology that gives access to cover details and quotes without customers having to give their phone number or email address. This engine is the result of four years of hard work.
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