Vol. 4 Issue 3, April 16, 2020
Hamilton's Labour Market Connection
Your weekly news & updates from WPH!
In this week's edition: Survey for Hamilton Businesses, Family/Work Balance, Provincial Labour Market Information, World's Workforce Impacted, Hamilton LMI
#HamOnt Businesses We Need to Hear From YOU!
The voice of business owners is needed - your business experiences are the most valuable information to understand local impacts from COVID-19
Wor kforce Planning Hamilton has been monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on the labour market in Hamilton and more widely.

To better understand what is happening locally, we have partnered with Hamilton, Flamborough and Stoney Creek Chambers of Commerce, Hamilton’s BIA's, and the City of Hamilton, Economic Development to assess the pandemics effect on the local business community through releasing a brief survey.

The survey's focus aims to understand:
  • issues your business is currently facing
  • anticipated effects the pandemic will have on your business
  • local level of awareness regarding municipal programs/initiatives
  • how to utilize local feedback to implement strategic actions to assist business immediately and in the future

If you are a local business owner this is your chance to voice the impacts you are experiencing. We need personalized feedback to better understand how to navigate strategic actions to best suit the local community. The survey is 17 questions and takes about 12 minutes to complete.
Family-Work Balance

As COVID-19 continues to shift the daily rhythms of Canadian households, millions of Canadians are feeling the pinch to balance competing demands of work and family. What are their employers doing to help?  

The Conference Board of Canada has asked organizations across the country how they’re accommodating employees with family responsibilities. 

  • 86% of employers reported having employees who cannot work their regular work schedule due to family responsibilities

  • 83% of employers reported providing a flexible working time to accommodate for family needs
What's Happening In The Labour Market?
Workforce
The negative impacts of COVID-19 on the labour market in Ontario had a greater impact on certain workforce groups. All age groups and sexes have seen job losses, females and young workers appear to be most impacted:

  • Females have seen a decrease of nearly 100,000 jobs between February and March 2020 across the province, pushing the unemployment rate for females from 5.5% to 8.5%
  • Workers aged 15 to 24, saw the largest increase in the unemployment rate moving it up from 11% to 15.8% between February and March 2020

Sectors

This chart identifies sectors in Ontario that have been most impacted by the pandemic so far. These five sectors had the largest drop in total employment between February to March 2020 across Ontario.



Source: Labour Force Survey


There are sectors that are stable and only slightly declining. These are the sectors that had the smallest drop or slight increase in total employment between February to March 2020.

Source: Labour Force Survey
WPH will continue to monitor labour market and report on changes and evolving conditions.
Next week we will provide data on occupational changes in Ontario.

*Note: These charts were created using Ontario labour force figures. They are unadjusted for seasonality. The trends are still relevant for Hamilton’s labour market as the industrial make-up is very similar between the province as a whole and Hamilton. However, two sectors that could have been added to the list of ‘Stable Sectors’ were excluded because they were not relevant to Hamilton: Forestry and logging and support activities for forestry; and Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction.
COVID's Impact on the World's Workforce
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Is your workplace on a lockdown? Full or partial lockdown measures are now affecting almost 2.7 billion workers, representing around 81 per cent of the world’s workforce.

The International Labour Organization new global estimates indicate that working hours will decline by 6.7 per cent in the second quarter of 2020, which is equivalent to 195 million full-time workers.

Hamilton Labour Force Information:
March 2020

The Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the City of Hamilton, Hamilton Economic Development, and the Flamborough and Stoney Creek Chambers of Commerce, are closely monitoring and assessing new developments pertaining to COVID-19, as well as its impacts on Hamilton business.

Workforce Planning Hamilton | 905-521-5777| [email protected] | www.workforceplanninghamilton.ca