After more than a year, Canada’s economy is starting to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic.
To date, the federal government has approved 12,004,240 applications for the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB), which dropped down to 831,340 active beneficiaries between Feb. 14 and Feb. 27, down from 1,119,960 between Jan. 31 and Feb. 13.
That level of growth would cause anyone to believe that Canada is rebounding at breakneck speed, say experts. But as of March 21, the federal government also said there were still 2,317,010 active beneficiaries supported through Employment Insurance benefits, with almost 5,000 Canadians applying to become first-time beneficiaries during the week of March 15.
The country’s most recent Labour Force Survey highlights some of those discrepancies.
According to the survey, the national unemployment rate fell just 1.2 percentage points to 8.2% in February. That percentage represents the lowest rate since the pandemic was first declared in March of 2020, but is a sign of a much more incremental improvement.
Employment increased by 259,000 in February, after falling by 266,000 over the previous two months. Part-time jobs saw the biggest increase at 171,000, whereas full-time work jumped by 88,000.
That these numbers aren’t higher could be a good thing, experts add.
The unemployment rate is the percentage of labour force participants that are not employed. To be a labour force participant in Canada, a person either has to be employed or searching for a job. But when someone stops searching for a job, they are no longer counted as labour force participants.
