Statistical Analysis provided by Tourism HR Canada

The following Statistics Canada numbers display a major decrease in employment. Both the seasonally adjusted and seasonally unadjusted labour force data show decreases in employment this past December. The adjusted data reports employment in Canada dropped by 63,000, while the unadjusted data shows a much steeper loss of 113,900.

Data is from the week of December 6 to 12.

In the tourism sector, employment dropped by 56,700, a decline of 5.4% from November. This is the third month of employment declines for the sector as a whole. The only industry group that added employment was travel services. 

The tourism unemployment rate increased from 13.9% to 14.6%. The number of unemployed tourism workers rose, while at the same time the total tourism labour force (all employed and unemployed workers) shrank. This is the second month in a row in which the tourism labour force declined. 

Tourism employment dropped in most provinces, with the biggest drops occurring in Alberta (-18,400), Ontario (-17,500) and Nova Scotia (-9,700). 

In December, the tourism sector employed 466,900 fewer people than it did in February 2020 and 521,300 fewer people than in December 2019. On a year-over-year basis, the accommodation industry has seen the greatest percentage decrease in employment. 

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