Employment in healthcare and social assistance

As we move away from the COVID-19 crisis, the lessons that this pandemic has taught us is that the healthcare system was not prepared to deal with it, with a glaring shortage of healthcare workers.

Since then, Canada has done everything to restore the reputation and give a second wind to the public health sector in Canada, and the number of people employed in the healthcare and social assistance sector has increased for the second time this year, with 15,000 (+0.6%) new jobs in February, after increasing by 40,000 (+1.5%) in January.

In February, there were also more people working in the public administration sector (+10,000; +0.9%). The monthly increase observed in the sector (people working in federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal public administrations and in Indigenous public administrations) was concentrated in Ontario (+7,600; +1.7%) and New Brunswick (+1,500; +4.3%).

However, employment declined in business services, building-related services, and other support services (-11,000; -1.5%) in February. The monthly decrease was concentrated in Ontario (-16,000; -5.3%).

After recording a notable increase in January (+59,000; +2.0%), employment in wholesale and retail trade barely changed in February. Employment in this sector was down 89,000 (-2.9%) from the recent peak reached in May 2022.

The number of people working in construction also barely changed in February after increasing for two consecutive months in December (+27,000; +1.7%) and January (+16,000; +1.0%).

Employment barely changes among adults in the main working age group and youth

For the most active age group (25 to 54 years old), the employment rate for women decreased by 0.2% to 82.0% in February. The same decrease was reported for men, with their employment rate dropping to 88.1%.

Meanwhile, employment among youth barely changed compared to the previous month, and their employment rate was 59.5% in February, up 1.8% from the rate recorded in September 2022 (57.7%).

The 12-month growth of the average hourly wage is over 5%

In February, the average hourly wage increased by 4.4% (+1.69%) to reach $33.16 compared to February 2022. This growth was higher than that recorded in January (+4.5%) and December (+4.8%), but lower than that posted in November (+5.8%) (Non-seasonally adjusted data).

Unemployment remains near a record low

Canada had just over 1.0 million unemployed individuals in February, which was practically unchanged from January. Most of the unemployed (67.6%) had been unemployed for 13 weeks or less. The proportion of unemployed individuals who had been unemployed for 27 weeks or more was 14.4% in February, down from 18.3% a year earlier.

But for the month of February, the unemployment rate remained at 5.0%, which is very close to the record low of 4.9% recorded in June and July 2022. It should be noted that it decreased for men aged 55 and over (-0.4% to 4.2%) and for women in the same age group (-0.4% to 4.0%).

The participation rate also remained stable in February, at 65.7%, and was up 0.5% from September 2022. Labor market activity increased significantly among women in the prime working-age group (+0.6% to 85.7%) and women aged 55 to 64 (+1.8% to 63.3%) from September to February, which helped to increase the overall participation rate in recent months and counteract the downward pressures from population aging on labor market activity.

For more information on the Labour Force Survey and EMPLOYMENT.