Statistical Analysis provided by Tourism HR Canada

Statistics Canada numbers released for the tourism sector show a further decrease in employment last month. The adjusted data reports employment in Canada dopped by 213,000, while unadjusted data shows a loss of almost half a million.

Data is from the week of January 10 to 16, 2021.

Tourism employment dropped by 135,300, a decline of 8.6% over last month. Employment decreased in all tourism industry groups – accommodations, food and beverage, recreation and entertainment, transportation and travel services.

The overall unemployment rate jumped from 8.0% to 9.8%. The tourism unemployment rate rose from 14.7% to 18.6%, the highest it has been since July. Tourism employment dropped in most provinces, with the biggest drops occurring in Alberta (12.3%), Ontario (14.4%) and Newfoundland and Labrador (14.4%).  

The tourism sector employed 594,000 fewer people than it did in January 2020.

TIAC is actively working to ensure that these numbers see a rebound through industry recovery measures. Please visit tourismcounts.ca to see how you can help support our message.

For more information on Tourism HR Canada’s labour trends, check out the Employment Tracker tool here.