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Canada’s labour market is taking a greater hit than the U.S. from the pandemic, according to a report by Indeed.com.

Postings in Canada for the week ended March 27 were down 24 per cent from the same time last year, the job board website said in a report on Tuesday. The decline in the U.S. was smaller at 15 per cent, it said. That matches a trend in jobless claims, where 1.55 million Canadians applied for employment insurance since mass lock downs began earlier this month — a much larger hit than the U.S. on a per capita basis.

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“Other data also suggest the immediate labour market shock from the COVID-19 crisis has been greater in Canada than the U.S.,” Brendon Bernard, an economist at Indeed, said in the report. Bernard cited U.S. Labor Department jobless claims data, that showed a total of 3.3 million people filed for unemployment insurance in the week ended March 21. Total employment in the U.S. is more than eight times Canadian levels.

Both economies are expected to contract this year as social distancing measures and business closures put a pause on economic activity. Economists see the countries bouncing back in the second half of the year, but there’s no certainty yet as to when policy makers will start to allow businesses and travel to open back up.

Bloomberg.com