Travis O\u2019Rourke, president of Hays, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss Canada’s February jobs data. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to pull good news from Canada\u2019s recent labour report<\/a>, after recording an unexpected loss of 84,000 jobs, however, one labour analyst says it can only get better from here.<\/p>\n With employment falling across the manufacturing, services, wholesale, and construction sectors, it\u2019s been \u201cone terrible month\u201d for Canadian jobs, says Travis O\u2019Rourke, labour analyst and president of recruitment agency, Hays.<\/p>\n \u201cBloodbath is the right word,\u201d he says, adding the general consensus among economists was that there would be an additional 10,000 jobs added in February. <\/p>\n Instead, Canada lost more than 100,000 full-time jobs with the unemployment rate climbing 0.2 per cent to 6.7 per cent, according to Statistics Canada\u2019s February Labour Force Survey,<\/p>\n This is after January saw a loss of 25,000 positions. <\/p>\n While the numbers look \u201cbad\u201d now, O\u2019Rourke says things will most likely pick up in the spring and summer due to job opportunities stemming from Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s infrastructure investments<\/a> and the much-awaited Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) <\/a>review deadline on July 1.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there\u2019s brighter signs ahead,\u201d says O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n AI will bring jobs, but it will take time<\/p>\n Normally the employment market is shaped like a pyramid where there are lots of entry level-jobs at the bottom, but now it is shaped like a diamond where entry-level jobs are scarce, says O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n He says it\u2019s becoming easy for companies to remove entry-level jobs that are easily replaced by artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n The recent job report shows a loss of 27,000 jobs<\/a> in February for young workers between 15 to 24 years of age. <\/p>\n \u201cTo get in that entry-level role right now is very difficult, so people are still moving up nicely,\u201d says O\u2019Rourke, but \u201cit\u2019s easy to cut costs by saying we\u2019re not hiring new grads.\u201d<\/p>\n Canada will need more skilled trade workers, especially women<\/p>\n Jobs in Canada\u2019s construction sector are poised to grow rapidly as the country prepares to meet the global demand for critical minerals<\/a> for data centers, but finding workers in skilled trades will be a particular challenge, says O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n