TORONTO — Ontario lost in excess of 153,000 positions in the long stretch of January, denoting the principal “striking decay” in work since May 2020, the country’s public insights organization said.
As per Statistics Canada’s most recent Labor Force Survey, which was delivered on Friday, around 214,000 positions were lost the nation over—however the larger part were brought together in two areas, Ontario and Quebec.
The overview utilized Jan. 10 to Jan. 16 as an example time span, around fourteen days after the Ontario government actualized a provincewide lockdown that covered practically all unnecessary businesses.”Employment misfortunes in January—profoundly amassed in the Ontario and Quebec retail exchange areas—represent the proceeding with weakness of explicit areas and gatherings of laborers to work misfortunes coming about straightforwardly from COVID-19 limitations,” the study said.
The unemployment rate in Ontario now stands at 10.2 per cent, which Statistics Canada says was “driven in part by an increase in the number of people on temporary layoff.”
Nearly all the jobs lost in the province were part-time positions.
Ontario’s January unemployment rate represents a 0.6 percentage point increase from the 9.6 per cent reported in December.
About 69,000 of the jobs lost in Ontario were in the Greater Toronto Area, Statistics Canada said, bringing the unemployment rate in the metropolitan area to 11.8 per cent.
The Labour Force Survey was released on the same day that sources told that the Ontario government is considering a gradual approach to reopening the economy and that the process could begin as soon as next week.
At the same time, sources say the government may extend the stay-at-home order across most of the province.
Ford’s cabinet was urged by public health officials to extend the stay-at-home order for at least one more week – until Feb. 16 – across most of Ontario, sources said, while pushing it an additional two weeks – until Feb. 22 – in Toronto, Peel Region and York Region. Under the stay-at-home order, residents are required by law to not leave their places of residence except for essential reasons such as work, health-related business or grocery shopping.
When the stay-at-home order is lifted, COVID-19 rules and restrictions in each region will continue to be guided by the province’s colour-coded tiered lockdown framework.
“When that stay-at-home order ends, then the transition back into opening back the economy has to be really carefully done or our numbers could go up again exponentially especially with the U.K. variant,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said.
“We don’t want to have to go into another lockdown, another stay-at-home order.”
On Saturday, Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca issued a statement saying the government “needs to let small businesses lead Ontario’s economic recovery.”
“Small business owners and their employees have been devastated by closures, all the while their Big Box competition has held near-monopolies on the economy. Small businesses employed some 88 per cent of Ontarians before the pandemic. We can’t afford to lose them permanently,” Del Duca said.
“Small businesses in regions that aren’t ready to re-open will need support too. Doug Ford needs to begin spending the billions of dollars in unspent COVID-19 funding that he’s been hoarding, to support the entrepreneurs who won’t yet be able to re-open up shop.”
News Source: CTV News.
Photo credit: Collected.
