Decline more striking in Canada than U.S.
Canadian job postings were down 24 per cent last week compared to 2019, according to a report, as the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis continues.
A week earlier, the gap was just eight per cent, says Indeed, an online job search company.
The pace of the decline was striking when compared to the U.S., where the year-to-date gap on March 27 was 15 per cent.
While initial claims for U.S. unemployment insurance hit a record level during the week of March 14, Canadian Employment Insurance reportedly jumped even more on a per-capita basis, says the company, which calculates the seven-day moving average of the number of Canadian job postings on Indeed.
Some of Canada’s largest declines – by 30 per cent – have been in sectors directly impacted by the virus and social distancing, such as hospitality and tourism, aviation, and food preparation and service, says Indeed.
As the economic fallout has spread, job postings have also dropped substantially in other areas of the economy such as:
- construction — which includes labourers, equipment operators, and skilled tradespeople — was down 19 per cent
- accounting was down 23 per cent
- legal — which includes lawyers, paralegals, and legal assistants — was down 25 per cent.
On the flip-side, job postings have continued to hold-up in a few areas of the economy, particularly in health-care-related sectors such as personal care and home health (which includes support workers and health-care aides), as well as for physicians and surgeons, both categories down just slightly from last year’s trend. Among non-health-care fields, postings in software development haven’t fallen off-trend as much as the rest of the economy, according to Indeed.
Meanwhile, more than half of households surveyed by Angus Reid Institute reported a drop in income due to the outbreak.
