On July 8th, the federal government will release its first fiscal update since December 16, 2019. The aborted spring budget, which was set to be released on March 30th, 2020, was swept away in the need for emergency action to support Canadians as COVID-19 forced the shut down of our…
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David Macdonald appeared as an expert witness before the federal Finance Committee June 18, to discuss banking and the government’s response to COVID-19. This is a copy of his prepared remarks. Thank you Mr. Chair and I’d like to thank the Committee for their invitation to speak to you today….
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Labour Force Survey key facts: In May, 2.7 million people lost their jobs and another 2.2 million had most of their hours cut compared to February. Since February, 4.9 million people have lost jobs or had most of their hours cut, an improvement from April when it stood at 5.5…
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Key facts: Oil sands and meat packing workers have seen terrifying COVID-19 outbreaks as they’ve stayed open in the first phase of the pandemic. Child care workers, construction labourers, servers, cashiers, and bus drivers have almost identical high risk scores as industrial butchers but, so far, they have been protected…
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April Labour Force Survey Key Facts: 3 million lost jobs, but another 2.5 million had a majority of their hours cut. 5.5 million Canadians lost work or a majority of their hours since February. 2 in 5 youth (aged 15 to 24) lost jobs or a majority of their hours….
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With provincial economies starting to reopen, we need to take a close look at the workers most at risk. Reopening is sometimes framed as if allowing businesses to switch on the “open” sign will immediately return everything to normal. But there are many more important considerations: workers and consumers need…
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Further to my other work looking at who has lost either their job or the majority of their hours between February and March, in this blog I wanted to provide a better take on which sectors were hit hardest. For the interactive version of this graph, click through to see…
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Key Findings 5.3 million women and 3.4 million men were jobless in April. This is up from 1.7 million women and 1.3 million men in March. In April, 14% of jobless women and 20% of jobless men had no income supports. As a result, 731,000 jobless women and 681,000 jobless…
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Key Findings Who’s in, who’s out: In April there were 1.4 million jobless Canadians without any income support from EI or CERB, up from 895,000 in March. 16% of all jobless Canadians had no support in April, down from 30% in March. The largest group of excluded workers (549,000) lost…
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March Labour Force Survey Key Facts: 1 million lost jobs, but another 2.1 million had a majority of their hours cut. 3.1 million Canadians lost work or a majority of their hours. 1 in 5 women (1.8 million) lost jobs or a majority of their hours. 1 in 4 youth…
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