It will be another at least another four years before Canada sees almost "full employment," as was the case before the recession hit in 2008, a Conference Board of Canada report said Wednesday.
The Ottawa-based think-tank said getting the unemployment rate down to about 6%, as it was before the recession, won't happen until 2016. While Canada has, numerically, recovered all the jobs lost during the recession, employment growth has not kept up with gains in number of people seeking work.
The jobless rate was most recently pegged at 7.2% in March.
The report predicts Canada's economy will grow 2.3% this year and average 2.7% over the next four years. That pace is expected to slow to about 2.1% after 2016, largely because of a tightening labour market.
Employers are expected to find it harder to find workers that match their needs as more Baby Boomers retire in the coming years. However, some of this will be offset by "robust" immigration, more women participating in the labour market and older Canadians delaying retirement to make back money lost during bad investment years, the Conference Board said.
