Canada’s Job Market Suffering More than American’s Per Capita

• Author: Monica Jackson
• Posted: 2024-05-22

Canada has around 11% of America’s population. So, per capita, that they lost one million jobs in March is actually a rather equal blow to America’s 10 million-plus jobs lost. The point is that things are bad all over, despite how some in media want to scapegoat certain politicians or nations for their own benefit. The numbers are the numbers. According to those numbers, however, Canada is doing very well in comparison to other nations with how few are infected. As of April 9, Canada only has a little over 20,000 dealing with the virus.

While this isn’t even 20% of what New York City is dealing with in the United States, it has still caused an economic meltdown in the nation, with the month of March seeing one million people lose their jobs, either temporarily or permanently.

The number of jobs lost in a one-month period, as well as the nation’s unemployment rate sitting at 7.8%, are both records for the nation. All nonessential businesses in Canada are completely closed. To understand the scope of this, it’s easier to list what counts as essential rather than naming off the hundreds of nonessential designated businesses. Basically, if you don’t operate a place where people can get food or gas or healthcare, you’re shuttered and are officially out of business. As one might expect, this is most businesses.

What scares a lot of Canadians is that Reuters, an otherwise reputable and accurate source of polling and predictions, only assumed Canada would suffer around 350,000 lost jobs. These numbers tripled according to data released early Thursday morning.

Something that Canada’s leading the world in per capita, however, are the numbers of people filing for federal emergency unemployment. In a nation of 37 million people, more than 5 million have filed for emergency relief. So while the unemployment numbers are only nearing 8%, the percentage of people filing for benefits is over 13% of the entire nation. That’s not only unprecedented; it’s also entirely unsustainable and could spell a serious economic collapse for the nation on par with the Great Depression in America circa the early 1900s.

To put this in context, in a per capita sense, that’s the equivalent of 60 million benefit claims in the United States, based on population, which would be disastrous for any economy. Keep in mind as well that this is just since the Covid-19 epidemic. When people are filing for emergency relief, it means they cannot pay their rent, buy food, etc, which causes a lot of desperation. Governments have little choice but to fill these claims, even at the risk of future inflation and other issues, or else they risk riots and uprisings and huge spikes in crime.

The fear here is that the fear will get worse, as most economic experts suggest that it’s the panic, partly induced by media, while partly based on a grim reality, that’s really driving this. Not only individual panic, of course; but for Canada to shutter everything nonessential for fewer than 0.001% of their population infected seems, to some experts, as a complete overreaction.

Though medical experts wish to counter those claims by looking at nations like Italy, Spain and the United States, suggesting that many if they would have done the same at the start, they wouldn’t’ be dealing with such massive outbreaks right now.

The Forecast for Western Economies

The blame game came come later, when people are healthy and economies have recovered. For right now, nations like Canada are really struggling. They don’t have gargantuan economies like some much larger nations. They’re already stretched to their limit with free healthcare measures for everyone who lives there, social safety nets that embrace immigrants and give them a lot of taxpayer money to settle in, and other infrastructure spending. This is something many fear can collapse Canada.

That fear definitely spreads out. Many other western nations are looking at Canada and are quickly trying to figure out if there’s anything else they can do to avoid that sort of joblessness and desperation. While everyone hopes that there is, the fact is that no one really knows. No one knows how bad this virus is.

At the start of it, even the World Health Organization were saying it cannot be transmitted person to person, and that there’s no reason to wear masks. Now, singing a different tune, they’re suggesting everyone wear masks and only go outside if absolutely necessary.

Everyone hopes for the best, but the forecast for western economies is seeming rather grim.