Economic and Social Reports

Spotlight on data and research

Interjurisdictional employment in Canada, 2002 to 2019

Interjurisdictional employment is when workers choose to work in another province or territory but not move their primary residence. It is an important source of labour adjustment in Canada. This article documents the evolution of interjurisdictional employment from 2002 to 2019, based on the most recent release of interjurisdictional employment estimates. About 440,000 workers were interjurisdictional employees in 2019, up from roughly 330,000 in 2002. On average, Ontario, Alberta and the territories had more interjurisdictional employees arrive than leave from 2002 to 2019, compared to the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, which had more interjurisdictional employees leave than arrive in that time.

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Research articles

Zombie firms in Canada

Zombie firms, are businesses that perform poorly over a long period of time without closing, and studies have shown that they can hurt the growth prospects of healthy firms within the same industries. This article provides some of the first results on characteristics of zombie firms in Canada. Using a comprehensive dataset that includes all private and publicly traded firms that file a corporate tax return between 2000 and 2019, it found that the share of zombie firms in Canada is much lower than previous estimates that focused only on publicly traded corporations. When all firms are considered, the incidence of zombie firms in Canada, at 5% to 7%, was substantially lower than among publicly traded firms alone (18% to 36%) and falls within the range of other OECD countries.

While the share of zombies among all firms declined after 2011, zombies are accounting for more resources over time, are worsening in their performance and negatively impacting the productivity and growth of healthy firms, and are increasingly lowering aggregate productivity.

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Characteristics of child care centres serving children aged 0 to 5 years in Canada, 2021 to 2022

This study is the first to report national estimates of the provision of child care services in centres that serve children aged 0 to 5 years. Findings from the 2022 Canadian Survey on the Provision of Child Care Services, provide a snapshot of child care services in Canada before the implementation of federal and provincial and territorial bilateral agreements for a Canada-wide early learning and child-care system. In April 2022, there were 12,664 child care centres across Canada providing care to children aged 0 to 5 years. About 9 in 10 centres offered full-time care and two-thirds offered part-time care. With 16% of centres offering drop-in or flexible care and 2% offering care in the evenings, weekends or overnight, there were few centre-based care options for parents who work non-standard hours.

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The likelihood and timing of mothers returning to work after parental leave

This study compared the characteristics and patterns of mothers returning to work after parental leave in 2019 to those in 2009. Compared with mothers in the 2009 cohort, mothers in the 2019 cohort were more likely to return to work at some point after parental leave (88% versus 82%). Over this time period, mothers in Canada had a higher level of education and made more investment in their career before childbirth. Overall, they were more likely to return to work after parental leave and use longer leave.  

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