Statistics Canada's April 2021 Labour Force survey results show the employment effects of the third wave lock-downs in Canada and Ontario. Indeed, of the 207,000 jobs lost in Canada between March and April, about three quarters (153,000) were in Ontario with a sizeable portion of the losses amongst youth (73,000). and in Toronto (53,000). However, the monthly numbers obscure the fact that for the most part, there has been an employment recovery underway in Ontario. From a peak of 7,487,300 jobs in February of 2020, employment in Ontario fell 13 percent to bottom out at 6,497,300 in June of 2020 before starting to rise again and as of April 2021 stood at 7,256,500 jobs. However, this employment level is still nearly 231,000 jobs below the February 2020 employment peak.
Based on the April numbers, year over year we are up 257,000 jobs or about 3.7 percent. The accompanying figure plots major Ontario urban centers and Ontario as a whole in terms of the ranked percentage employment gains from April 2020 to April 2021. It also includes the percentage change from February 2020 to April 2020. Peterborough, Windsor and Brantford, have seen the largest percent employment gains over the course of the last twelve months. Indeed, if one goes back to February 2020, Peterborough is up 5,000 jobs from the February employment peak - or nearly 9 percent. Brantford is also up from its February peak as are Guelph and London.
Everyone else is still below where they were in February of 2020. The worst year over year performances are in Sudbury, Oshawa and Barrie, which range from a 0 percent increase to a six percent drop. Indeed, Barrie is down over 15,000 jobs since February of 2020 for a total drop of 12 percent. Barrie's recovery appears to have peaked in August of 2021 and has come down in employment terms since.
And of course, there is the biggest job engine of them all - Toronto. Here the year over year April numbers are up 2.2 percent - for an increase of 70,600 jobs but Toronto is still down 180,000 jobs from its February 2020 peak. So, nearly a year and a half into the pandemic, Ontario is still hurting with Toronto the largest source of missing jobs.
