Some very peculiar things are going on in Canada's job market.
In an economy that puts an ever-increasing premium on education, you would expect that those who never got beyond elementary school would have trouble finding work. You'd be right. In 1997, 22.4 per cent of that group had jobs, and by last year, that was down to 21.7 per cent.
However, you wouldn't expect that something similar might be happening among Canada's best educated. Yet it is: In 2002, 77.1 per cent of university graduates had jobs, down from 78.4 per cent five years earlier.
Among all other Canadians, the employment rate climbed over the past five years. This odd trend -- declines for the best and least educated among us and gains for the rest -- was spotted by Philip Cross, Statistics Canada's head of current economic analysis.
Each year, he writes a wide-ranging review of the latest year for Statscan's flagship publication, Canadian Economic Observer, and he has a habit of turning up such unnoticed moves in the economy.
In the past five years, he found, "high-school graduates led the way . . . followed closely by people with a postsecondary certificate and those who did not finish high school."
For high-school graduates, the employment rate climbed 1.9 percentage points to 66.4 per cent from 64.5 per cent. Among those with a postsecondary certificate, 72.6 per cent had jobs last year, up 1.8 points from 70.8 per cent in 1997. The rate for high-school dropouts was 45 per cent in 2002, up 1.7 points from 43.3 per cent in 1997.
"The persistence of this trend, through various stages of the business cycle and rapid changes in technology, remains one of the most interesting shifts in the labour market."
It's obvious from some of those numbers that getting an education still carries a big payoff -- as in a 77.1-per-cent chance of having a job if you get a university degree, compared with a 66.4-per-cent chance with only a high-school diploma and a 45-per-cent chance for the high-school dropout.
So Mr. Cross adds a caution not to read too much into this "convergence between different education groups," he warns. "In absolute terms, job opportunities grow, earnings rise, and unemployment falls as education levels increase."
In the past five years, there were 23 per cent more jobs for university grads and 15 per cent more for those with a postsecondary certificate, both well above the 12-per-cent increase for the whole economy.
What's pushed down the employment rate for university grads is another factor altogether: The supply of such people has grown faster than the demand for their services. As a result, the jobless rate for people with university degrees climbed to 5 per cent in 2002 from only 3.8 per cent in 2000.
This seems particularly strange for a period in which the number of jobs grew at a hectic pace, especially in 2002, one of the best years on record.
What's behind such behaviour, Mr. Cross argued, is the nature of the latest surge in jobs.
A housing boom created thousands of new construction jobs, with an increase of almost 5 per cent last year and nearly 20 per cent since 1998. There are now more construction jobs than ever and the industry's unemployment rate last year was down to 10 per cent, half what it was 10 years earlier. Manufacturing also saw a strong turnaround last year after faltering in 2001.
"Neither industry requires extensive formal education, as 46 per cent of workers in each have only high school or less," he said.
Not every blue-collar industry chipped in with new jobs for the less educated. In the primary sector, where education levels are the lowest, the mining and forest industries both shed jobs.
Even in the service industries, "the mix of jobs shifted away from industries associated with a university education." Retailers, hotels, restaurants and bars added workers, almost half of whom have a high-school education or less. But the professional and scientific group stalled after years of huge gains; the bursting of the technology bubble had a lot to do with that.
Despite these shifts, the better educated are still doing much better than those with less schooling. But in relative terms, Mr. Cross has put his finger on a subtle shift. The former have done less well in recent years than they did through most of the 1990s while the latter are doing better.
So the gap between the better and lesser educated, which widened for a long spell and appeared set to keep growing, actually narrowed in the past five years.
That alone makes it "noteworthy that in a more knowledge-oriented society, employment gains are more evenly distributed" now than they were a half-decade ago.
Canada adds more jobs than forecast in August
Fri, Sep 10 2010
The Canadian economy added more jobs than forecast in August, though the unemployment rate edged higher as more workers entered the labour force, government figures showed.
Canadian wages on the rise
By Sunny Freeman
|
Fri, Aug 27 2010
Canadians have been bringing home more money each week than they did during the economic downturn, when jobs and workers´ hours were slashed, but economists warn a return to recession in the United States could derail rising incomes.
Unemployment hits 15-year high in Ontario
By Madhavi Acharya, Tom Yew, Rita Trichur
|
Sat, Jun 6 2009
Overall, Ontario was walloped by a net loss of 60,000 positions, bringing the province´s running tally of employment losses to 234,000 since the labour market peaked last October.
Employment insurance numbers jumped 10% in March
By CBC News
|
Tue, May 26 2009
The number of Canadians collecting regular employment insurance benefits grew by 65,300, or more than 10 per cent, in March, marking the biggest monthly increase since the job market began to deteriorate in October.
Rising Gas Prices Guzzle Take-Home Pay
By Maura Pallera, Salary.com
|
Thu, Aug 14 2008
This summer, Americans were paying, on average, $4.09 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline to fuel the vehicles they rely on to get to and from work everyday. This represents an increase of $1.14 over the same time last year.
