In the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Trudeaupia, everyone has a job – Based on today’s Labour Force Survey, 92% of jobs created since February 2020 are in the public sector.
One of the major questions of the pandemic-induced recession was about the magnitude and mix of the subsequent economic recovery. Would it be a U-shaped recovery? Or a W-shaped recovery? Or an L-shaped recovery? And where would the jobs come from? Which sectors would ultimately drive the recovery?
That Canada’s economy fully restored the jobs lost during the pandemic by late 2021 seemed to answer these questions. Headlines and commentaries declared that “Canada’s pandemic jobs recovery has been remarkable” and “Canada’s labour market bounces back.”
The Trudeau government was even more affirmative: its 2021 economic and fiscal update, for instance, boasted that the economy was “roaring back” based on recouping 106 percent of the jobs lost during the pandemic.1
Yet these top-level claims require a deeper dive into what’s really behind Canada’s post-pandemic recovery. The data tell us a less favourable story than the prevailing narrative in the media or from the government. Much of Canada’s post-pandemic jobs recovery—indeed, nearly 85 percent since February 2020 — has actually been concentrated in the public sector. We have experienced a G-shaped recovery: a government-centric recovery.
