Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services

Ontario Labour-Market Challenges
Ontario was particularly hard hit by the recent global recession, accounting for 60 per cent of
Canada’s job losses in 2009. Even before the onset of the recent recession, Ontario’s
economy faced challenges that continue to stifle job creation, including a sharp appreciation of
the Canadian dollar, historically high energy prices, rising competition from emerging countries
and a weakening U.S. economy. For example, the manufacturing industry lost jobs for six
consecutive years, bringing manufacturing employment in 2010 to its lowest level since 1976.
This trend in manufacturing and job losses in resource sectors such as forestry have
contributed to increasing unemployment for long-tenured workers. Many of these workers face
significant challenges to re-employment.
While employment in Ontario is growing again and has already recovered all the jobs lost
during the recession, young people, recent immigrants and Aboriginals continue to
underperform. The recession worsened their employment outcomes, but they struggled in
the job market well before that. Groups facing such labour-market challenges include:
� Youth (aged 15 to 24) employment shrank in 2010 for the third consecutive year;
� Very recent immigrants (five years or less in Canada) continue to experience a rising
unemployment rate, up from 12.7 per cent in 2008 to 18.4 per cent in 2010;
� The unemployment rate for Aboriginal youth was 20.8 per cent in 2010, up from
19.8 per cent in 2008;
� The number of laid-off older workers nearly doubled — from 75,600 in 2006 to
141,500 in 2009;
� The unemployment rate for female single parents with children under age six increased
from 12.4 per cent in 2009 to 17.2 per cent in 2010; and
� Barely half of the population aged 15 to 64 with a disability was in the labour force
(54.9 per cent in 2006).
The persistent lack of employment opportunities for these groups, as well as media reports of
skill mismatches and unfilled vacancies, shows that the existing program delivery structure
needs significant improvement.
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