Economic and Social Reports

Insights

Employer responses to labour shortages

As a response to record high job vacancy rates, businesses that expect labour shortages are far more likely than other businesses to consider increasing the wages of new or existing employees in 2022. In line with that fact, the wage growth expected in 2022 in these businesses (6.1%) is higher than that expected in other businesses (3.6%). This study uses data from the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions to document the strategies that private sector businesses expecting labour shortages at the beginning of 2022 plan to use during that year to deal with personnel recruitment, retention and training. It also found that these businesses are more likely to provide flexible work arrangements and increase the human capital of their workforce.

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Research articles

The value of unpaid childcare and paid employment by gender: What are the impacts of the low-fee universal childcare programs?

The value of unpaid childcare in Canada was about 284 billion dollars in 2015—around 15% of the gross domestic product for that year. Women accounted for about 60% of the hours spent on unpaid childcare and other household activities in 2015 compared with 40% for men.

The employment rate of women with children increased faster in Quebec than in other provinces after the implementation of the low fee childcare system in Quebec in 1997. The hours worked by mothers with children in Quebec increased 9 percent between 1998 and 2015, representing a 2.8 billion dollars contribution to GDP.

There was little difference in the impact of the low cost childcare on the employment rate and the hours worked of mothers between immigrants and native born and between low income and high income households.

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Retention of government-assisted refugees in designated destinations: Recent trends and the role of destination characteristics

Two-thirds of government-assisted refugees (GARs) who were assigned to medium-sized Census Metropolitan areas (CMAs) stayed 10 years after immigration, as did 39% to 44% of those who were assigned to small CMAs and small urban areas. These rates were similar to those of economic immigrants whose initial destinations were not assigned by the government. Furthermore, when GARs left their designated destination, the majority did not move to the three largest gateway CMAs.

This study observed that the rate of retention in designated destinations by the end of the first full year after immigration has increased considerably among successive arrival cohorts of GARs since the early 2000s. The study also found that the retention rate was strongly associated with the number of GARs resettled in the same community in the same year and the presence of co-ethnic communities.

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