Brendon Bernard
@BrendonBernard_
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Economist at @IndeedCanada , talking Canadian jobs, economy, & my own views.
Toronto, Ontario
Joined April 2013
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#ปิ่นภักดิ์EP10
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TLP THE SECRET OF RING
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凱旋門賞
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シンエンペラー
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Falling Up
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Lewandowski
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宇宙戦艦ヤマト
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#TheStarChapter
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Vikings
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オリックス
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中嶋監督
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Rodgers
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Enzo
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Raphinha
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Madueke
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ITZY IMAGINARY TRACK
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ブルーストッキング
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Saleh
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アルリファー
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ロスアンゼルス
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ハンターハンター
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アヴァンチュール
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#乃木坂工事中
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A potential sign of things to come, among women still employed, the share of usual hours worked lost due to personal/family reasons (which includes childcare) has jumped up over the past two months. No change among men.
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The contrast in Canadian job losses across occupations is staggering. The number of employees in lower-paying occupations was down 30% y/y in April, while mid-wage was down 20%. Employees in high-wage occupations? ONLY DOWN 1.3% y/y!
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Wild stuff in the Canadian labour market:
The plunge in youth employment rates over the past year is now approaching Great Recession levels.
Meanwhile, core-age (25-54) emp rates have slumped a bit, but are still relatively elevated.
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Unreal: the Canadian working age employment rate - the share of people ages 15-64 with a job - HIT AN ALL TIME HIGH in November.
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Homeownership rates of young adults on the decline: 2021 Census
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A greater share of Canadian 25-54 year olds, both men & women, are working full time jobs than pre-pandemic.
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It's not just the +40 year low in unemployment rate...
The prime-age employment rate - the share of Canadians age 25-54 with a job - is at an all time high of 83.5%
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Was light on twitter last week, it was a busy one 😉🎉
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It finally happened... 🇨🇦 real per capita disposable income dropped below its pre-pandemic level.
GDP is a bit amorphous, but this one hits home.
For the politically minded, real disp. income was an excellent predictor of incumbency advantage in 20thC US pres. elections.
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Just grabbed “How the World Became Rich” by
@jaredcrubin
&
@MarkKoyama
.
🧵of interesting tidbits I encounter along the way! 1/
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With the budget behind us, we can return to the pressing economic issue of our day: why have the number of ppl working in management jumped +50% in just 3 years? Why the "bossification" of the Canadian economy?
I looked at the data a dozen ways, here's what I found: 🧵
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Lol how funny would it be if Canada's productivity woes of the past 3 years were because the number of managers rose by 500k (~50%).
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Very excited to hit 2,000 followers, which on a per-captia basis translates to over 17K followers by US standards 😎
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Incredible! I'm hearing from people who signed up for CERB yesterday who already have money in their bank accounts!
The biggest over-the-shoulder fear I had in the degree to which things were being rolled out at breakneck speed was the potential for phoenixation of the income transfer system.
I. Bow. Down. to the people who McGyvered the solutions on top of and alongside this legacy system.
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End of an era: Canadian job postings are now slightly lower than pre-pandemic levels.
After stabilizing earlier in the year, they've been dropping since April - not good for job seekers.
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Jobs are flatlining, while population continues to soar. The wider the gap in trends the weaker the labour market - things are deteriorating. 1/
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By some (NOT all!) metrics, the Canadian labour market didn't just recover in 2021, but ended last year in its strongest shape in decades.
Standing out: the % of the core-age pop. that are full-time, permanent employees: well above pre-pandemic levels for both men & women.
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Yikes, job growth has slowed to a crawl, while population growth accelerates! The headline employment rate has dropped a full -0.2 ppt in each of the past two months...
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Foreign job seekers have clearly noticed the recent policy changes (and weaker economy) meant to reverse the rise in non-permanent residents in Canada.
In March, the share of clicks on CA job postings by job seekers abroad was down 40% vs. Q3 2023. 1/
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Canadian wage growth has picked up in nominal terms, but isn't keeping pace with inflation, now to the point where real (inflation adjusted) average hourly earnings are below pre-pandemic levels.
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New NBER paper uses Toronto data to measure the impact of trees on property prices!
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Wow, I was totally unaware that according to their respective consumer price indices, the price of rent has grown MUCH more over the past two decades in the US than Canada, totally contra to house prices!
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The immigrant share of the Canadian population hit 23% in 2021, surpassing its previous all time high 100 years earlier.
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BIG JUMP!
Canadian "Employment rose by nearly one million in June (+953,000; +5.8%), with gains split between FT work (+488,000 or +3.5%) and PT work (+465,000 or +17.9%). With these two consecutive increases, employment in June was 1.8 million (-9.2%) lower than in February.
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Over the past 5 years, Toronto’s population grew quickly both downtown (grey) and distant suburbs (orange), but not much in between them.
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Soaking in my last night on St George.
While not without its flaws, I had a feeling when I moved back to TO I’d find a spot here, a strip with *relatively* affordable vintage mid-rises, that’s walkable, accessible, and has trees. The city needs more areas like this 👍
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The Canadian working-age employment rate jumped 0.2 ppt in September.
At 74.7% the share of people 15-64 with a job is at it's highest level ever!
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Just bookmarked this page. The government will update CERB application data every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Unclear where EI claims fit in with all this
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A flat headline employment number isn't a big deal. The issue is that it's in the context of rapid population growth (+91K in March!)
Put together, and it shows a weakening labour market.
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One of the most positive Canadian labour market stories of the past year: the decline in long-term joblessness.
In December, 1.4% of Canadians wanted a job but hadn't worked in 12 months, down 0.5 ppt from a year earlier.
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Canadian job postings continue to climb, as of last Friday standing 33% above their pre-pandemic level. In mid-May they were up 18% vs. Feb-2020.
While recent gains have been led by re-opening sectors, they've also been pretty broad-based.
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Compensation of Canadian employees was up a large 11% y/y in 2022Q2, according to the national accounts data.
And yet final output prices (incl. exports) increased so rapidly that the labour share of income dropped, showing up in stronger corporate profits instead.
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Canadian house prices are falling, yet the shelter CPI accelerated from 6.9% to 7.2% y/y.
Rents were up 5.9% y/y, while interest costs soared 14.5%. These factors will be pushing up the CPI for a while even if market conditions (like rent-list prices) start to cool.
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Brutal: Canadian labour productivity down 5 straight quarters!
Earlier declines could be waved away as "pandemic rebound" effects, but this is now settling in as the new normal.
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Among youth, mainly teenagers, the weaker labour market has been especially felt among people who've never worked before at all, not getting the usual summer experience.
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The Bank of Canada has put together a really impressive dashboard of Canadian labour market indicators, including
@IndeedCanada
posting data as part of its metric of market tightness.
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Calling for an immediate investigation into the "bossification" of the Canadian labour market!
First reaction: skeptical with the LFS data showing the # of managers has really jumped 50% in 3 years... needs corroboration.
But if the trend is in fact accurate 🤯
Lol how funny would it be if Canada's productivity woes of the past 3 years were because the number of managers rose by 500k (~50%).
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Last year was a bad year for youth employment, especially among those born in Canada.
This January, the share of CA-born youth working had dropped from a solid rate in early 2023 to the lowest level since at least '07.
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Canadian employer hiring appetite is gradually returning. New postings on
@IndeedCanada
were 24% below last year's trend as of last Friday, continuing their steady rebound after plunging earlier in the crisis.
#cdnecon
#cdnpoli
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The TFW program gets the attention, but it's when it comes to raw numbers, the international mobility program (IMP) is way bigger!
For instance in 2020, (before the surge), the number of workers in Canada on IMP visas was ~6 times larger than TFW visas.
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A key factor boosting the overall rate: The employment rate of prime-age Canadian women hit an all time high of 80.3% this past February - a culmination of decades-long trends together with recent cyclical strength.
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Higher interest rates only make homeownership more affordable IF falling house prices reduce payments more than higher rates increase them.
All else equal, the ~246 bp rise in fixed rates since last July requires at least a 19% price drop just to keep payments constant. 1/4
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Milestone alert! It took about a year, but job postings on
@IndeedCanada
are now finally above their pre-pandemic level!
Strong momentum in new postings suggests the trend has room to run.
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About to hop on a community feedback call for a 7 story midrise at 287 Christie St.
At first glance the only thing that looks controversial about the project is the “angular plane”, but we’ll see!
Shoutout to
@MoreNeighbours
for their calendar of public-consult dates!
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One of my favourite Canadian econ indicators.
Note: Active “businesses” are establishments (ie locations) with at least 1 employee
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Checking in on Canada's "Great Resignation"... not much to see.
Rates of workers voluntarily leaving their jobs for non-employment look pretty similar to pre-pandemic.
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Public sector employment (+16%) has far outpaced overall Canadian job growth (+6%) over the past 4 years, according to the LFS.
Public sector growth has been strong across provinces, but BC really stands out.
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It's definitely more fun to react to the LFS on live TV when the numbers are strong!
Better than expected job gains are nothing new (been on LFS watch a full for 6 years now!), but the immediate financial market response to the news was surprising.
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The shift in Canadian employment from low-paying to-high paying occupations that began at the start of the pandemic has persisted over two years later.
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October LFS: SHEESH
Employment rose by 108,000 (+0.6%) in October, recouping losses observed from May to September. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.2% in October.
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Canadian job posting data through June 12:
New postings continue to make strides - the gap with last year's trend narrowing to -29%, from -37% a week earlier. Good to see momentum! But...
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Job postings on
@IndeedCanada
continued their recovery last week, closing the gap to 13% below last year's trend.
Pandemic-vulnerable sectors (food service, sports, aviation) are struggling, but many parts of the economy are getting back to normal.
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Why I'm wary of taking inflation-ex shelter at face value, whether for trying to understand the "true" pace of inflation, or its drivers:
If housing wasn't so expensive, people would be spending more money elsewhere!
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Canada's weaker labour market isn't coming from people losing their jobs - layoffs rates in May remained quite low.
Rather, it's because new jobs aren't being created, particularly vs. rapid population growth. The hiring rate slipped from an already weak pace a year ago.
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It's been easy to sum up the Canadian labour market lately because the monthly numbers have be so consistent!
Employment rose a modest 22K in August, while population was up 96K. The result: the overall employment rate has either been flat or down for 19 consecutive months!
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Underrated problem in Canadian economic data is the lack of cost of living comparisons across regions - comprehensive metrics, not just house prices.
StatCan hasn't updated its inter-city price differentials since 2020, data which was already peculiar and hence "under review".
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@KevinWGlass
Using PPP boosts Canada up about 10%, (from 0.75 USD/CAD in 2019 to 0.83) though doesn't change the base story.
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NEW: Canadian employer recruiting activity is down across the country since 2022.
But a divide has also emerged: job postings are still elevated in small cities/rural areas. The big 3 metros (plus other ON cities) have dropped off.
Read more:
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Excited to see
@IndeedCanada
job posting data included in today's Economic and Fiscal Snapshot!
Props to
@TaraSinc
and
@adhi_rajaprab
for leading our public agency data-sharing program!
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Was pleased to see my follower count grow past 4K, before realizing it was actually down in per-capita terms 🤔
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HOW is the Canadian dollar only at 79 cents??
Western Canadian Select is now over $100 per barrel (that’s *US* dollars!) and the chart is absolutely bananas.
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One of the more surprising things about Canada's labour market recovery is how overall employment can exceed its pre-pandemic level, even when several industries are a ways from full recovery.
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Canadian restaurant dining activity via OpenTable shows traffic slipping recently, though no plunge yet.
Data as of the week through Dec 16th.
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First non-zoom interview in a longgggg time, talking seasonal retail on Queen St. (my suggestion 😂)
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Nice chart from the BoC MPR (presumably using non-public micro data) on the share of unemployed people who find work in the following month, which has plunged recently to recessionary-levels.
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However Canadian men are also doing pretty well!
After jumping up last month, the prime-age male employment rate hit 87.0%, matching the highest point reached during the previous economic cycle in 2008. The rate hasn't been higher since 1989!
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Less dramatic than surging non-permanent residents but worth noting, is that recent immigrants to 🇨🇦 are faring better in today's labour market:
The unconditional wage gap btw recent (<10 yrs) and non-immigrants* age 25-54 is currently -10.5%, vs. -20% in 2013... (1/8)
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The shift in Canadian employment to high-wage occupations that accelerated at the start of the pandemic has continued! And the change has come within private sector employment, rather than the overall rise in public sector jobs.
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Widening gap between flat employment levels, and ongoing fast population growth:
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The Canadian unemployment rate broke its +2 year streak of sub-6% unemployment.
But this isn't exactly a "hard landing" report:
The layoff rate in March was quite low, and actually less than last year. But what was already low, and deteriorating further, are new hires
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They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I take this fake-account in stride, though I am a bit miffed at their pre-emptive block!
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While Canada's GDP per capita only grew 2.5% between 2013-2021 (IMF data), real median income grew 12.3%!
At least part of the stronger median personal income growth reflects some narrowing of income inequality. The Gini coefficient went from 35.7 to 33.2 over the same period.
Real median personal income (before-tax) increased by 17.7% in 🇺🇸 between 2013 and 2021. Over the same period, it increased by 12.3% in 🇨🇦.
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The core age group has held relatively steady overall, but among the largest four sub-groups by ethnicity, employment rates have also dropped sharply among Black and South Asian Canadians.
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Pleased to see the Bank of Canada utilizing our
@IndeedCanada
job posting data, which tracks the overall trend in StatCan's official job vacancy data nicely!
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The weakening Canadian employment situation in one picture: jobs failing to keep up with population growth.
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Collar a little off, but I think I mostly hit the mark
King of Spain at the final day of Wimbledon. This looks great.
Very rare to see this level of tailoring nowadays, even on the wealthy. So let's talk about some of the reasons why it's great. 🧵
3K
16K
155K
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@JohnPasalis
In per capita terms:
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The Canadian recovery continues, just a bit slower:
Employment rose by 419K (+2.4%) in July vs. 953K (+5.8%) in June. Combined with gains of 290,000 in May, this brought employment to within 1.3 million (-7.0%) of its pre-COVID February level.
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The industry-breakdown of Canada's employment recovery looks much different than the US.
Payrolls in high wage industries in Canada have grown much, both in white collar services, AND construction/resources.
So why doesn't this good news on the job front extend to GDP growth?
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The latest RBC consumer spending tracker suggests Canadian household spending is in strong shape.
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Wow HUGE LFS beat!
Employment increased by 150,000 (+0.8%) in January, and the unemployment rate held steady at 5.0%.
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In normal times, the population growth numbers aren't the hot economic data point, but here were are!
The story remains the same, just have to increase the range on the y-axis. Huge boom in non-permanent newcomers drives y/y Canadian population growth to 1.25 million.
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Canadian youth employment rate is down a large 4.4 ppt over past year.
The decline has been widespread across provinces (NB and west), but especially in Ontario, where the rate has plunged way more than elsewhere (-6.7 ppt), to levels prevailing in the fall of *2020* 😱
Wild stuff in the Canadian labour market:
The plunge in youth employment rates over the past year is now approaching Great Recession levels.
Meanwhile, core-age (25-54) emp rates have slumped a bit, but are still relatively elevated.
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NEW Data 🔥Job postings are more than just a real-time gauge of employer job vacancies.
ENTER the Indeed posted wage tracker for 🇨🇦! A new metric which tracks how advertised salaries listed in job descriptions are evolving. 1/
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The share of Canadian firms reporting labour shortages as a constraint to meeting current demand has held at about 40% (most recently 42%) over the past three quarters.
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Last July, 2.7% of all Canadian adults were long-term jobless - out of work over a year but wanting a job (whether searching or not) - an extreme challenge for the labour market.
This July, the share was down to 1.5% of the population, basically matching its 2018 level!
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Temporary layoffs accounted for 36% of Canadian job losses early in the pandemic.
However their ranks have shrunk sharply since, and are now just 12% of the remaining 1.1M employment gap vs. Feb.
New hiring will be needed to keep the recovery going.
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Homeownership rates among early 30's, based on current income and # of homes owned by parents.
Having parents as homeowners is correlated with a much greater jump in ownership among those earning 40-80K than those earning +80K .
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Despite deteriorating home affordability in Canada, in 2022, 49 thousand Canadians emigrated to other countries, down roughly 20% from the outflow rates that prevailed between 2007-2016.
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Canada's recent drop in self-employment (as % of total workers) in historical perspective - pretty huge!
As others have noted, the gig economy of the 2010's didn't really show up in the LFS numbers.
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Go-to places for Canadian real-time data:
1.
@CDHoweInstitute
dashboard:
2. Consumer spending trackers (Scotia, TD, RBC)
3.
@CFIBeconomics
for business surveys
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Overall youth employment is flat, while their population is soaring.
But beneath that flat job number, the number of working 15-24 year olds born in Canada is down 91K from a year ago (-4%), while the number who are non-permanent residents working is up 69K (+46%).
Yeesh, the Canadian youth employment rate is tumbling, down a full 3.4 ppt over the past year.
The plunging share of 15-24 year olds working reflects both a flat y/y employment, combined with explosive +6.1% population growth over just 12 months!
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