Canada’s labour market as measured by the number of jobs maintained has been resilient given the series of global shocks during the first two decades of this century. The shocks have been varied, by cause, depth and breadth. Specifically

1. the 9-11 terrorists’ attack resulting in greater physical security stringency
2. the global financial crisis in 2008 and the near closure of the global financial system resulting in greater financial market stringency
3. the 2020 pandemic and the subsequent economic quarantine of international transactions and may have ties to competition between the economy and the ecology
4. Wars including the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of war in Gaza and impact on commodity prices and security of supply chains

Only one shock, the global financial crisis can be attributed to how one part of the economy was mismanaged. Two are attributable to unresolved socio-political issues and the pandemic shutdown was attributed to the attempt to quarantine economic agents to confine the spread.

Each shock has had an impact on Canada’s real economy but the number of jobs returned to its simple linear trend.

For purposes of this post, the “real economy” is measured in terms of employment and jobs. These are both tangible and readily understood policy makers of all backgrounds. It is noted that economists have developed and prefer other more technical measures of the real economy but most policy makers, generally not economists, can and do relate to the number of people with or without jobs.

The three economic sectors and two subsector discussed in this post are:

• Business Sector, for purposes of this post the Business Sector is splot into two subsector:
  • Goods Producing
  • Service Producing
• Non-Profit Institutions Serving Households
• Government

As illustrated in Figure 1 in spite of the economic shocks in 2001 and 2008 the Canadian labour force maintained its simple linear trend growth even reaching slightly above trend before the global financial crisis but fell through trend during the pandemic economic shut down. The pandemic shutdown proved to be the most serious, it was mandated by the government and its recovery has been fostered by relaxation of the shutdown rules and government financed offsets,

The 9-11 terrorist attack had a small but perceptual negative effect on business sector employment. Jobs in the goods producing sector remained generally flat in spite of internal competition for many of its products. Exposure of the service producing subsector preceded the goods-producing subsector decline. The 2008 global financial crisis had a greater impact on the business sector through normal channels of the market economy – greater uncertainty, capital shortage and reduced banking services. But the pandemic shutdown had the greatest impact on jobs in both subsectors. These were impacts of mandatory government regulations in response to the pandemic.

Throughout the period the broadly defined government sector provided stability for the economy as a whole.

Here is the supporting spreadsheet.