OECD Suggests Canada Lagged in Job Creation Post Recession

OTTAWA—A recent report from the Paris-based OECD suggests that Canada’s employment record is not near the best.

According to the 34-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada would place fifth during the recovery period according to the percentage of the working-age population that held a job at the end of 2013, compared to the situation prior to the 2008-09 recession.

The OECD data shows that 72.4 percent of Canadians aged 15-64—what is normally considered the working age—were employed in the fourth quarter of 2013, compared to 73.7 percent who had a job in the second quarter of 2008, for a differential of minus 1.3 percentage points.

That’s far better than the United States, which went from 71.2 percent of the working-age population having jobs in the spring of 2008 to 67.4 percent at the end of last year, a negative differential of 3.8 percentage points.

But it’s a distance from Germany, with a plus 3.7 percentage point differential and a 73.5 percent employment rate, or Japan, at plus 1.3 points, and even France and the United Kingdom, which are also close to returning to their pre-recession employment rate.

Overall, the majority of OECD nations have yet to return to pre-slump employment levels.

The OECD data finds that other industrialized countries, not members of the G7, have come out of the slump a shade better than Canada, including Austria, Israel, Sweden, and Switzerland, all of which have higher employment rates today than prior to the recession.

At the bottom end of the scale are the known “sick sisters” of Europe, including Greece with a negative 12.9 percentage point differential, Spain at minus 10.3 percentage points, Ireland at minus 7.0 percentage points, and Portugal at negative 6.2 points.