Monster Jobs Report Boosts Canada, But It Hasn’t Fully Healed

(Bloomberg) -- Canada now has roughly as many employed workers as it did in February 2020, but it still has some catching up to do.

That’s because the 157,100 positions added in September were more than enough to return Canada to pre-Covid employment levels but short of the pre-pandemic trend line for job growth for the last 18 months.

“These are all encouraging signs that the recovery is progressing,” Stephen Tapp, chief economist at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said by email. “But we should also acknowledge that Canada’s labor market recovery is still far from complete.” He said the nation was still 400,000 jobs behind the pre-pandemic trend.

That shortfall is an important consideration for the Bank of Canada, which released a paper on the subject of labor market slack earlier this week. Policymakers led by Governor Tiff Macklem have argued that a complete recovery requires employment to exceed pre-pandemic levels due to factors like population growth.

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