Canada has just recorded the highest unemployment rate in its entire postwar history, so claims of a labour shortage seem far-fetched. The official unemployment rate is 13.7 per cent — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Statistics Canada’s broader measure of joblessness (called the “underutilization rate”) is 35 per cent.
In other words, more than one worker in three wants work but can’t find it. That’s as bad as the worst years of the 1930s. What’s in short supply is jobs, not workers.
