Economic and Social Reports, December 2022

Released: 2022-12-22

The December 2022 issue of Economic and Social Reports, which contains four articles, is now available.

New data on Indigenous-owned businesses

In 2018, there were an estimated 37,000 Indigenous-owned businesses among the 2,537,000 Canadian-controlled private corporations and unincorporated businesses in Canada, for which sex, Indigenous identity and age of ownership as well as province and employment size can be defined. The article "Characteristics of Indigenous-owned businesses" summarizes findings from a new methodology applied to linked data that are the first to enable more disaggregated analysis of trends in Indigenous business ownership and potential microdata analysis, including the intersection with other business and owner characteristics.

First Nations and Métis controlled a majority of Indigenous-owned businesses (94.1%), while Inuit owned 1.6% of them. Individuals with other Indigenous identities owned the remaining 4.3%. From 2005 to 2018, Alberta was the province that had the highest number of Indigenous-owned businesses (24.0% on average), followed by Ontario (20.1%) and British Columbia (17.4%). From 2005 to 2018, the majority of Indigenous-owned businesses (73.4% on average) were held by men, followed by women-owned (23.2%) and equally owned (3.4%) Indigenous businesses.

A larger percentage of Canadians than Americans lost jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, but employment rebounded more quickly in Canada than in the United States

A greater share of Canadians lost their jobs during the COVID-19 lockdowns than Americans. The article "Employment growth in Canada and the United States during the recovery from COVID-19" showed that, in both countries, the service sector experienced greater declines than the goods sector, with the largest losses observed in close-contact services like accommodation; other services (such as auto mechanics and personal care services); arts, entertainment, and recreation; and food service and drinking places.

However, employment rebounded more quickly in Canada than it did in the United States and continued to outpace US employment growth in the two years after the lockdowns. The difference in the pace of recovery is mainly due to record-high participation among Canadian core-age workers (those aged 25 to 54 years). Participation rates for those 55 years of age and over in both countries rebounded following the lockdowns. But, in the United States, the rate began to decline again in the second half of 2020, and in Canada, the rate began to decline again in the first half of 2021. In both countries, participation rates for this group remained below pre-pandemic levels. While the United States experienced a "great resignation," with quit rates rising to record highs, there has been little sign of this trend in Canada. In Canada, the job-changing rate returned to its pre-pandemic average in the second half of 2021, reached a peak in early 2022, and has trended lower more recently.

A majority of PhD graduates do not have academic jobs

Most people who pursue a PhD do so because they want to work in academia. However, the study "Occupational profile and work tasks of Canadian PhDs: Gender and field of study differences" shows that more than 60% of individuals who graduated with a doctorate from a Canadian university and were in the Canadian labour market in 2016 did not have academic jobs. This proportion varied by field of study and, to a smaller extent, between men and women. About 10% of doctoral graduates worked in jobs that did not require a university education.

The study also found that, on average, more than 70% of doctoral graduates who did not work in academia worked in professional occupations related to their field of study (a higher share of men than women in many fields), or in policy research or consulting (a higher share of women than men in many fields).

Overall, outside academia, PhD graduates worked in jobs that required fewer analytical tasks than being a university professor or lecturer did, but more analytical tasks than jobs held by graduates with a master's degree in the same broad field of study. Given the growing gap between PhD enrolments and professorships, this work can help universities develop resources to support students transitioning into non-academic jobs.

Proportionally, almost twice as many immigrants believed in Canadian shared values on diversity compared with Canadian-born people

Compared with Canadian-born people, a proportionally larger share of immigrants believed that Canadians share democratic values—such as human rights, gender equality, and ethnic and cultural diversity—to a great extent. The study "Perceptions of shared values in Canadian society among the immigrant population" assessed perceptions of these shared values. Read more in the Daily release "Study: Perceptions of shared values in Canadian society among the immigrant population."

Products

The December 2022 issue of Economic and Social Reports, Vol. 2, no. 12 (Catalogue number36280001) is now available. This issue contains the articles "Employment growth in Canada and the United States during the recovery from COVID-19," "Occupational profile and work tasks of Canadian PhDs: Gender and field of study differences," "Perceptions of shared values in Canadian society among the immigrant population" and "Characteristics of Indigenous-owned businesses."

Contact information

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