Job pain to expand beyond initial virus ‘she-cession’: economists

Women bore the brunt of early COVID-19 job losses in Canada, but the playing field will likely level off after social distancing measures prompted nationwide layoffs.

More than one million Canadians lost their jobs in March, with the pain concentrated in the services sector and women disproportionately accounting for more than 60 per cent of the losses. April numbers are due this week and economists are expecting the cuts to be even worse.

“It will be far more widespread and we will see more industries that are connected to men’s jobs affected,” according to Armine Yalnizyan, a research fellow at the Atkinson Foundation focusing on the changing nature of work.

The closing of schools and childcare centres — where many women work — is one reason why female employment took such a hit in the early days of the pandemic, Yalnizyan said in an interview.

While economists have started to call the sharp downturn a “she-cession,” April’s numbers may not accentuate female employment losses as much given huge swaths of the economy are now suffering.

Canada probably lost more than four million jobs on the month, representing a fifth of the labour force and by far the largest decrease in monthly employment on record, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Brendon Bernard, an economist at job-search platform Indeed Canada, will be watching the construction sector closely in Friday’s report. Indeed data suggest job postings for construction have fallen in line with overall labour-market losses. “The hit might not have been too great in March but we could see more troubling numbers in April,” Bernard said by phone.