Canada’s economy lost nearly two million jobs in April as the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily shut down entire non-essential industries, the country’s national statistics agency reported Friday.
The loss of 1,993,800 jobs in April came on top of more than one million job losses in March, bringing the total employment decline since the beginning of the COVID-19 economic shutdown to over three million.
In addition, the number of people who were employed but worked less than half of their usual hours for reasons related to COVID-19 increased by 2.5 million from February to April, Statistics Canada reported.
That means the cumulative effect of the economic shutdown — people both no longer employed or working far less — was a staggering 5.5 million as of the week of April 12.
The unemployment rate shot up 5.2 percentage points in April to 13 per cent.
In fact, the April unemployment rate would be 17.8 per cent if those who would prefer to be employed, but did not bother to look for work, were added to the jobless tally.
“The magnitude of the decline in employment since February (-15.7 per cent) far exceeds declines observed in previous labour market downturns,” the report said. “For example, the 1981-1982 recession resulted in a total employment decline of 612,000 (-5.4 per cent) over approximately 17 months.”
A banner with a message is hung on the front of a closed bike rental business in Vancouver, on Thursday, Apr. 16, 2020. Canada’s economy has lost more than three million jobs since February as many businesses were forced to shut down temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Darryl Dyck/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
All provinces have been hit hard, but Quebec the epicentre of the pandemic, has suffered the biggest employment losses in April at -18.7 per cent, or 821,000 jobs.
Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets said April was a “disaster” for Canada’s job market.
“Being so far beyond what we’ve seen in past recessions, it’s tempting to call this a depression, but that’s not an accurate depiction given that many of these job losses are temporary,” Shenfeld wrote in a research note to clients.
“As those return, we’ll be left calling it a bad recession, one that needs some help from medical science, perhaps even more than economic policy, to really cure.”
In a joint statement released Friday morning, Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough, Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos and Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the federal government has taken “unprecedented action to support Canadians and their families through this difficult time.”
“Canadians should be confident that we will do whatever we can to ensure that their jobs are safe as we continue to fight the global COVID-19 outbreak,” the statement said.
“As provinces and territories begin to lift restrictions and our government continues to take steps towards economic recovery, we will be there for Canadians. We will get through these challenging times together.”
With files from The Canadian Press
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