High job vacancies, low unemployment rates, and an aging Canadian workforce are major challenges facing the economy, say two academics, who also point to COVID income supports and declining teen labour participation as issues demanding significant responses from employers and policy-makers alike.
Late in April Statistics Canada announced that the country has more people aged 55 to 64 years than those 15 to 24, the age at which people enter the workforce. This news followed a record-low unemployment rate of 5.3 percent in March, which refers to the percentage of workers who are unemployed and actively seeking work.
And despite the hunger for workers, teen labour participation was just 50.7 percent in the first quarter of 2022, noticeably lower than its peak of 59 percent in 1989 or even the 56.5 percent of 2008.
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