AUS
NZ
UK
CA
USA
IND
Source: Andrii Vodolazhskyi, Shutterstock
While Canadians were celebrating Christmas parties with friends and family or traveling to warmer locales for the winter holidays of December 2019, a novel coronavirus was rearing its head in China’s Wuhan.
Fast forward to March 2020, the world had been turned on its head by a microscopic agent named SARS-CoV-2.
Within the span of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada had shrunk the economy by 3.3 per cent, become the third leading cause of death by taking almost 16,000 lives and rendered millions jobless, as per Statistics Canada. With international travel bans in place, the country saw 85 per cent less visitors from overseas last year, while 75 per cent fewer Canadians came home from abroad.
©Kalkine Group 2020
The COVID-19 outbreak had taken its toll on mental health too, as a StatCan study points that nearly 40 per cent of Canadians reported feeling more desponded since the onset of the pandemic.
As we complete a full year of living amid a pandemic, here is a quick look at the COVID-19’s financial impact in Canada in 2020.
Employment
Canada saw visible minority groups suffer higher levels of unemployment, financial crisis and representation in low-paying jobs during the pandemic as per StatCan.
Unemployment rate stood at about 20.1 per cent for Southeast Asians, at 16.4 per cent for Blacks and at 16.6 per cent for Latin Americans, according to the Labour Force Survey Supplement of January 2021. Meanwhile, young Canadians accounted for 44 per cent of net job losses between the beginning of the pandemic and January this year.
By the end of 2020, the report says that about 1.1 million Canadian workers were affected by COVID-19.
©Kalkine Group 2020
Economy
With output, employment and working hours dwindling amid lockdowns, almost every sector in Canada was impacted in the spring of 2020.
While economy-wide output remained 3.3 per cent lower than the pre-COVID levels in December 2020, the pace of economic recovery had slowed again near the end of the year with the second of COVID-19 infections.
Businesses
The latest StatCan study notes that as of November 2020, the number of active businesses in Canada was 4.5 per cent below pre-pandemic levels.
Sectors like aviation, accommodation and services, recreation and entertainment, etc had suffered the most due to the lockdown restrictions. However, as the Canadian government stepped forward to help out businesses, they received about C$ 83,000 in support on average.
As the Canadian economy continues to recover and COVID-19 vaccine rollouts ramp up, employment rates and businesses are likely to improve in health through 2021. But as Bank of Canada noted in its latest key interest announcement statement, a “considerable economic slack” still persists.
