Dramatic rise of unemployment in Toronto

With tens of thousands of jobs lost in the past year, Toronto's unemployment rate has been rapidly rising.

While the federal government is inciting a record population growth with the promise of providing jobs for everyone, the state of the labour market in cities like Toronto seems to be worse than ever. According to the latest labour force survey conducted by the government organization „Labour Force Survey,“ nationwide unemployment has risen to 5.8 percent in February of 2024. This is primarily because the employment rate has not been able to keep up with the sharp increase in population growth, with a record of 430,000 new inhabitants in the third quarter of last year alone. This is especially noticeable in Toronto, where the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has risen far above the national average (7.4 percent) last month. This is a 0.3 percent jump since January of 2024 and a 1.7 percent  jump since February of 2023. This represents 75,000 unemployed individuals for last year alone, while the number of those willing and able to work has increased by millions. If we do a comparisson with other provinces, Ontario's workforce has remained relatively stable compared to Alberta and Nova Scotia, where the workforce has increased by tens of thousands since autumn of last year.

"The employment rate has fallen from a recent maximum of 62.2 percent, achieved in June of 2023, to 60.6 percent in February of 2024. This is a result of the the population of individuals of ages 15 and older having grown in the province by 316,000," StatCan writes.

"With the increase in the number of individuals looking for work, the unemployment rate has increased by 0.3 percentage points to a grand total of 6.5 percent between the periods of January of 2024 to February of that year respectivley."

Experts have been concerned for months about the Canadian government's ambitious goal of increasing Canada's immigration quota, which will lead to a sharp rise in population. According to some sources, population growth puts our future "on potentially shaky ground." The country is also exhibiting a textbook example of "housing demand shock." This deficit of housing units is estimated to reach a whopping number of 500,000 over the course of next two years. 

This article is part of the Local Journalism Initiative