The economic impact of Covid-19 has affected output and employment in economies around the world and of course, Ontario is no exception. However, just as the economic impact varies across countries around the world, so does it vary within countries and within regions. Seasonally adjusted monthly employment in Ontario between February 2020 and September 2020 has fallen from 7,551,900 jobs to 7,077,600 jobs - a percentage drop in employment of 6.3 percent. The drop was steepest from February to June - which saw a drop of 13 percent but the rebound since has recovered some but not all of the jobs lost.
The accompanying figure plots the percentage change in employment level for the province along with its major CMAs during this eight month period of the pandemic for which Statistics Canada has released the seasonally adjusted monthly employment numbers. The results are interesting. The worst hit CMAs are Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge and Thunder Bay - which saw declines of 11.2 and 9.2 percent respectively. At the other extreme are Guelph and Brantford, which have now recovered all of their lost employment and in the case of Guelph seen a small increase.
There is no apparent pattern to the impact of employment losses based on the impact of COVID. Thunder Bay had a very mild impact from Covid-19 in terms of cases and mortality (to date Thunder Bay District is at a total of 114 cases and one death - one of the lowest rates in the province given a population of about 140,000) and yet it had the second highest percentage employment losses. Toronto and Ottawahave had higher rates incidence and mortality compared to Hamilton and yet are in the middle of the pack in terms of employment losses while Hamilton has done worse than they have The employment losses really make little sense in terms of the impact of the virus.
There also seems to be no obvious patterns in terms of location.The hardest hit in terms of employment losses are in northern Ontario, the Golden Horseshoe, central Ontario and eastern Ontario. The smallest hits are in central Ontario, eastern Ontario and southwestern Ontario. Good and bad performance is spread everywhere which brings us to perhaps factors such as local response to the pandemic by employers and health authorities as well as composition of the local economy.
Were some communities quicker to implement lock downs and shutdowns and with more stringent rules and slower return to work? The case of the two northern Ontario CMAs may be a case in point given the share share of public sector employment in those cities and yet their poorer employment performance.
The Kitchener-Waterloo area is exceptionally dependent on students
and the businesses servicing those students so maybe that is a factor. A detailed look at the restaurant, accommodation, hospitality, recreation and cultural/entertainment shares of local employment may also yield insight into why some CMAs did so poorly relative to others given these sectors were exceptionally hard hit. Of course, as we move into winter one grows concerned that additional impacts on these sectors may have permanent long-term effects.
Until we drill down into more detailed data, the differential impact is a bit of a puzzle.
