The Surrey Board of Trade’s review of the May 2021 Labour Force Statistics is released.
“BC’s job recovery continues slightly in May 2021, particularly impacting certain goods and service industries, partly from public health restrictions, however recovery should pick up with the easing of restrictions in BC’s Restart Plan and increased vaccinations,” said Anita Huberman, CEO, Surrey Board of Trade.
Summary
- Accommodation and food services, agriculture, construction, retail and other (personal) services are still of concern and have room for recovery to pre-pandemic employment levels.
- BC is leading Canada’s recovery with employment at more than 99% of February 2020 levels.
In addition to certain industries and occupations, visible minorities, Indigenous women, and youth in BC are still experiencing great job impacts from the pandemic. - Despite a slightly slowed job recovery in May 2021, the SBOT remains confident that BC is well-positioned fiscally, economically and public health-wise to survive further adverse labour market impacts of this pandemic. If COVID-19 case growth is blunted, vaccinations continue to ramp up and business and workplace restrictions are loosened before summer – optimism will then prevail.
As the Surrey Board of Trade has previously cautioned, “economic recovery will require effective public policies and support, innovative business practices, increased digital transformation, business resilience and a collaborative approach to economic recovery among governments, businesses, workers and public sector service providers.”
“Vaccinations continue to be the pathway to recovery and businesses in BC need to continue to be supported to move to recovery and resiliency as they see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.”
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MORE INFORMATION:
SURREY BUSINESS LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVE
BC Labour Force Survey Data
Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey, May 2021 (Released June 4, 2021)
Overall – Canada
The May 2021 Labour Force Survey (LFS) data reflects labour market conditions during the week of May 9 to 15, 2021.
With public health restrictions continuing or being introduced in a number of provinces since the April reference week, employment in Canada fell by -68,000 or -0.4% in May 2021 while the unemployment rate increased slightly to 8.2%. Most of this job loss (-54,000) was in part-time work).
Goods-producing jobs dropped for the first time since April 2020, led by a decline in manufacturing (-36,000 or -2.0%) and construction (-16,000 or -1.1%). Retail trade (-29,000 or -1.4%) and other services (-24,000 or -3.2%)) led job losses in the service-producing sector.
Employment increased in transportation (+22,000) and natural resources (+8,600) with the latter leading the way in recovery across Canada with +29,000 (+9.3%) more jobs than pre-pandemic levels.
The largest job losses in May were in Ontario (-32,000 or -0.4%) and Nova Scotia (-22,000 or -4.8%) with slight increases in Saskatchewan and PEI.
While full-time employment changed little in May, it is still -303,000 (-1.9%) below February 2020 levels. Part-time jobs dropped a further -54,000 and is -7.5% or -268,000 below pre-pandemic levels. Self-employment remained unchanged but is still -5.0% (-144,000) below its pre-pandemic level.
The number of long-term unemployed in Canada (those unemployed for 27 weeks or more) declined slightly to 478,000 (from 486,000 in April).
Canadians working from home remained at 5.1 million persons in May 2021 or 27.5% of total employment.
Total hours work changed little in May, while the involuntary part-time employment rate is up to 22.7% of part-time workers from 18.5% in February 2020. This is also reflected in the number of “discouraged job searchers”:
“In May, there were 49,700 discouraged searchers, accounting for 9.3% of those who wanted work but did not look for work (not seasonally adjusted). This was down from the record high of 146,000 in April 2020, but more than twice the average of 22,000 seen in 2019.”
Unemployment in May increased among visible minority youth, older workers and women. The employment rate for Indigenous women (51.6%) remains the lowest below its pre-pandemic level (down by -3.3 percentage points) compared to 58.4% among Indigenous men and 63.4% for non-Indigenous Canadians.
Overall – BC
BC’s job recovery was further delayed in May 2021, as public health restrictions continued to late May. The unemployment rate dropped to 7.0%, the lowest since February 2020, and recovery remains at 385,500 jobs since April 2020.
While the number of unemployed British Columbians has dropped by -46.7% or -172,100 since the highest level in June 2020, there are still 54,800 more unemployed persons or 40.2% more than in February 2020.
While BC’s unemployment rate tipped up 0.2 percentage points in April 2021 to 7.1% (but lower than the 8.1% national rate), it is still higher than the pre-pandemic level of 5.1% in February 2020.
Goods-Producing Industries
BC’s goods-producing industries lost -6,600 jobs or -1.3% since April 2021 with only utilities seeing an increase (+700 or +3.4%).
While overall, the sector remains -11,600 or -2.3% below pre-pandemic employment, utilities (+5,700 or +37.0%), natural resources (+12,300 or +29.0%) and manufacturing (+10,400 or +6.3%) are all significantly above February 2020 employment.
Construction (-32,500 or -13.0%) and agriculture (-7,600 or -26.5%) are still well below pre-pandemic employment.
Overall, the BC good-producing sector has recovered +42,900 jobs for a +9.6% increase since April 2020, with natural resources, utilities and manufacturing leading the way.
Service-Producing Industries
Employment in the service-producing industries in BC increased slightly by +4,800 jobs (+0.2%) in May 2021. Most industries in the sector saw small decreases with the exception of other services (+12,300 or +3.7%) and transportation and warehousing (+2,700 or +2.0%).
The sector has by +342,700 jobs or +19.2% since April 2020 and is at over 99% of pre-pandemic employment with 13,500 less jobs than in February 2020.
Despite the massive recovery – particularly in professional, scientific and technical services with +36,500 (+16.4%) more jobs than before the pandemic, and in health care and social assistance (+17,100 or +5.2% above February 2020), and public administration (+17,300 or +15.3%) – three service industries remain hard hit: Accommodation and food services is down -43,700 or -21.7% since February 2020;
Other services is down -15,200 or -4.2% and retail and wholesale trade is at -14,300 or -3.5% less than February 2020.
These industries should see further recovery as BC’s Restart Plan relieves restrictions on restaurant dining, personal services and regional travel in the coming weeks.
Occupations
Occupational categories in May 2021 experienced a mix of increases and decreases:The biggest gains were in trades and transport jobs (+20,800 or +5.8%), manufacturing and utilities (+12,100 or +17.4%), arts, culture, recreation and sport (+8,000 or +9.0%) and natural and applied sciences (+6,900 or +2.7%).
Significant losses were seen in business, finance and administration jobs (-22,000 or -5.0%) and sales and service employment (-10,300 or -1.7%).
Unemployment rates dropped in manufacturing and utilities and natural resources and agriculture (both -2.3 percentage points) and in sales and service (-2.0 percentage points).
With the exception of management (-22,600 or -8.9%) and sales and service (-90,200 or -13.3%), all other occupational categories had employment levels at or higher than pre-pandemic job levels. Recovery has been led by employment growth since the pandemic in natural and applied science (+54,400 or +26.4%), education, law, social, community and government (ELSCG) (+27,100 or +10.0%), manufacturing and utilities (+14,300 or +21.3%) and health (+12,600 or +6.5%) occupational categories.
Despite its current deficit relative to February 2020, sales and service jobs in BC in May 2021 were up +143,600 or +32.2% since April 2020. Natural and applied sciences occupations recovered +83,000 or +47.1% and ELSCG increased employment by +48,400 or +19.3% since then.
Regions
Census metropolitan areas and development regions in BC experienced small fluctuations in employment in May 2021.
The greatest job changes since pandemic were in areas outside Greater Vancouver and Greater Victoria. Abbotsford-Mission had had an increase of +4,600 or +4.4% employment and three rural regions have had significant increases since February 2020:Kootenay employment increased by +5,400 or +6.9%;
North Coast and Nechako increased by +2,900 or +6.9%; and, Cariboo increased by +4,900 or +6.0%. One geographic soft spot remains Kelowna (-5,500 or -5.1%) and the Thompson/Okanagan region (-9,800 or -3.4%). Northeast (4.5%), Kootenay, Cariboo and North Coast and Nechako (all 6.5%) and Vancouver Island/Coast (6.6%) regions, Kelowna (5.8%) and Abbotsford-Mission (5.9%) Census areas all have unemployment rates below the 7.0% BC average.
Age, Gender and Other
The youth (15-24 years) unemployment rate in BC increased significantly in May 2021 with the male youth rate growing from 10.9% to 13.0% and female youth rate increasing from 12.3% to 17.6%. Conversely, the rate for those 25 years and older by +0.6 percentage points.
The youth unemployment rate in BC in May 2021 is now well more than double that of workers 25 and over (15.1% versus 5.7%), with that of female youth being triple the rate for females 25 years and older.
Full-time employment in BC increased by +22,300 or +1.1% in May 2021, and part-time jobs decreased by -23,200 or -4.0%. While employment for men in the last month increased by +15,500 and was all full-time, employment for women dropped by -17,300 and was all part-time.
BC has -24,100 less full-time jobs in May 2021 compared to February 2020 (-1.2%) and -1,100 less part-time jobs (-0.2%); however, the ratio of part-time as a percentage of total is minimally higher at 21.1% (compared to 21.0% pre-pandemic).
In terms of ‘class of worker’, private sector and self-employment have been more significantly impacted than public sector jobs.BC lost -7,000 self-employed jobs in the last month, a drop of -1.5%; self-employment is down by -28,900 or -6.1% since February 2020;
+20,900 private sector jobs were gained in BC in May 2021, an increase of +1.3%, but down by -32,200 or -1.9% since the pandemic.
Conversely, while public sector employment dropped by -15,800 or -3.0% in May, it is still up by +35,900 or +7.5% since February 2020.
Summary
BC’s job recovery continues slightly in May 2021, particularly impacting certain goods and service industries, partly from public health restrictions, however recovery should pick up with the easing of restrictions and increased vaccinations in BC’s Restart Plan.
Accommodation and food services, agriculture, construction, retail and other (personal) services are still of concern and have room for recovery to pre-pandemic employment levels.
BC is leading Canada’s recovery with employment at more than 99% of February 2020 levels.
In addition to certain industries and occupations, visible minorities, Indigenous women, and youth in BC are still experiencing great job impacts from the pandemic.
Despite a slightly slowed job recovery in May 2021, the SBOT remains confident that BC is well-positioned fiscally, economically and public health-wise to survive further adverse labour market impacts of this pandemic. If COVID-19 case growth is blunted, vaccinations continue to ramp up and business and workplace restrictions are loosened before summer – optimism will then prevail.
As the SBOT has previously cautioned, “economic recovery will require effective public policies and support, innovative business practices, increased digital transformation, business resilience and a collaborative approach to economic recovery among governments, businesses, workers and public sector service providers.”
Vaccinations continue to be the pathway to recovery and businesses in BC need to continue to be supported to move to recovery and resiliency as they see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.
Source: BC Stats – Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, May 2021. Released June, 2021.
Composed by:
Kerry Jothen, B.A., M.A.
CEO + Principal, HUMAN CAPITAL STRATEGIES
kjothen@ humancapitalstrategies.ca
and
Anita Huberman
CEO, Surrey Board of Trade
anita@businessinsurrey.com
