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Canada’s unemployment rate was at 4.9% again in July, according to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey.
Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 4.9% in July, matching the record low from the month before.
The total number of unemployed people held steady at one million in July. In addition, 426,000 people wanted a job but did not look for one, and therefore did not meet the definition of unemployed. This was little changed for the sixth consecutive month. The adjusted unemployment rate—which accounts for this source of potential labour supply—remained at 6.8%, the lowest rate since comparable data first became available in 1997.
In addition, employment in Canada decreased by 31,000 jobs, which according to Statistics Canada does not represent a significant change. Canada lost about 74,000 jobs from May to July, but from May 2021 to May 2022, employment had increased by more than one million.
That being said, July marks the second consecutive month of decreased employment in Canada. Plus, the record-low unemployment coupled with more than one million job vacancies means Canada is still facing a tight labour market.
“Two consecutive months of lower employment indicates that the Canadian labour market is running up against capacity constraints, with little room for upside movement,” writes RBC economist Carrie Freestone in an economic update. “Demand for workers is still very high with job postings still 65% above pre-pandemic levels (though the number of job postings continues to fall), and there are few unemployed Canadians available to fill these vacant positions.”
Employment among public sector employees fell by 51,000 (1.2%) in July, the first decline in the sector in 12 months. The decrease was largely concentrated in Ontario and Quebec. Despite the month-over-month decline, public sector employment was up 5.3% (+215,000) compared to July 2021.
The number of self-employed workers increased by 34,000 (+1.3%) in July after falling by 59,000 (-2.2%) in June. Despite this increase, self-employment remained flat on a year-over-year basis and was 214,000 (-7.4%) below its pre-pandemic February 2020 level.
Employment fell by 53,000 (-0.3%) in the services-producing sector in July. Wholesale and retail trade contributed the most to losses in this sector. The number of people working in wholesale and retail trade fell by 27,000 (-0.9%) in July, the second consecutive monthly decline. The majority of the net decrease took place in Ontario and Quebec.
“Job losses were strangely concentrated in the services sector, including wholesale and retail, education and health,” Andrew Grantham, CIBC told Reuters. “With some of those sectors reporting high vacancy rates; labour supply rather than demand appears to be the main issue. That said, the major difference between today’s report and last month’s is that wage growth unexpectedly decelerated.”
Average hourly wages for employees rose 5.2% (+$1.55 to $31.14) on a year-over-year basis in July, roughly the same year-over-year rate of increase seen in June (+5.2%; +$1.54). For a second consecutive month, average hourly wages grew at a similar pace among part-time (+5.0%; +$1.05) and full-time (+4.9%; +$1.52) employees. Earlier in 2022, wage growth had been faster among full-time employees compared to part-time workers.
The most recent inflation data indicated that the Consumer Price Index rose 8.1% on a year-over-year basis in June, the largest annual change in nearly 40 years.
“The rising cost of living is raising the temperature at the collective bargaining table,” wrote economist Liam Daly in a Conference Board of Canada media release. “Given the rate of inflation, unions argue that typical annual pay rises are simply insufficient. Amid high vacancy rates and a low unemployment rate, workers are negotiating from a strengthened position.”
Doug Porter, BMO economist, said in a statement to Reuters the main takeaway is that the job market is still very tight.
“We’re still dealing with the lowest unemployment rate in at least 50 years, and wages that are running strong,” Porter said. “But from a growth angle the reality is employers are having trouble finding employees, and, so that caps the growth of the economy.”
The Administrative Court of the Lisbon Circle has ruled in favor of a golden visa applicant who sued the SEF over excessive wait times for his biometrics appointment, the final step necessary before the visa is issued, and has ordered the agency to grant the applicant his biometrics appointment within ten days.
Between January 1st, 2022, the date on which the Portuguese golden visa’s new regulations took effect, and June 13th, investors were unable to submit new applications through the SEF’s online portal. While that matter has since been resolved, the waiting time between an application’s approval and the applicant’s in-person appointment at the SEF’s premises to provide final documents and biometric data so that their visa may be issued has become unacceptably long.
The Portugal golden visa application procedure follows three general steps:
■ Submit the application through the SEF’s online portal (this possibility was closed to practically all applicants in the first six and a half months of this year);
■ Await the SEF’s approval or rejection of the application (this procedure is meant to take no more than three months but can now take as much as eight);
■ If the application is approved, receive an email from the SEF inviting the scheduling of a physical meeting, and attend the appointment to deliver biometric data and final documents.
It was only last month that the SEF resumed biometrics appointment bookings, and even then, only for new golden visa applications, not for those at the renewal stage.
Even now, the first dates available for scheduling the appointment with the SEF (for those who can even get such an invitation) are as many as six months after the application has been approved.
In December last year (days before the suspension of new applications via the online portal), an English national applied for the Portuguese golden visa on the basis of a EUR 350,000 investment in a qualifying fund. The investor was “prepared to wait eight months until he had his residence permit issued and moved to Portugal with his family,” the investor’s lawyer Bettino Zanini, of Lexidy Law, told. The lawyer points out that a procedure that, prior to the pandemic, had taken six to eight months. By spring of 2022, however, the process, from initial application to the final biometrics appointment, was taking some investors upwards of 18 months.
Five months after submitting his application online, the English investor was still awaiting a response to his application from SEF. After consultation with his attorney, he decided to file a suit against the SEF in the Administrative Court of the Lisbon Circle on April 11th, 2022.
In July, the court issued its verdict: The SEF, said the judge, would have to consider the investor’s application and – if finding it to meet all the criteria – make available a biometrics appointment within ten days.
“Like us, the client was very satisfied with the decision,” Zanini told.
Questioned as to whether the decision could have implications for the thousands of other applicants suffering under similarly unreasonable delays, Zanini noted that while the ruling applied directly only to this particular case, it could be “an important precedent that can be used as a paradigm to guide the judgment of similar cases.” He also indicated the verdict would serve as a warning to the authorities to take the delays seriously and pointed out that such treatment of applicants “is very harmful to the program that aims to attract foreign investment in Portugal and boost the economy of the country.”
