A year after the pandemic walloped the construction industry, employment has yet to return to its previous highs
The construction industry’s labour market snapped a three-month winning streak in April as overall employment in the industry stayed short of its pre-pandemic highs.
The latest Labour Force Survey from Statistics Canada shows the industry shed 12,700 jobs, or 0.9 per cent, last month. The construction employment market’s first loss for 2021 comes a year after a huge wave of pandemic-related layoffs put more than 300,000 workers out of work in April 2020.
Nevertheless, with 1.455 million now employed in construction, the industry has largely recovered from the abrupt job losses. Statistics Canada notes it remains 39,000 workers shy of its labour level prior to COVID-19.
The construction losses in April roughly matched the Canadian economy’s struggling job market. Across all sectors, 207,000 fewer Canadians, or 1.1 per cent, were employed in April compared to a month earlier. The federal agency pointed to the third wave of the pandemic and related public health restrictions for the decline.
