Are Canadians More Likely to Lose Their
Jobs in the 1990s?
by Garnett Picot and Zhengxi Lin
Business and Labour
Market Analysis Division
Analytical Studies Branch research paper series, No.
096
The issue of job instability was addressed from a number of perspectives.
Work reported here focuses on the probability of a worker being laid off. After
controlling for worker characteristics, the position in the business cycle, and
the changing composition of the workforce, was a worker more likely to be laid
off in the 1980s and the early 1990s as compared to the late 1970s?
Administrative
data on labour turnover suggests that in general the answer is no, at least to
1993. This result also fits with similar findings from the U.S. However, some
groups of workers were observed to have higher layoff rates, including older and
higher paid workers, and those in the health, education and welfare services and
the primary sector.
Overall this probability did not rise, however. There
were significant related changes in the 1990s. The hiring rate was much lower
than during comparable periods in the 1980s. Having lost a job, it was much more
difficult to find another paid job.Most employment creation in the 1990s was due
to self-employment rather than paid jobs. Self-employment is inherently more unstable.
These trends, combined with a very slow economic recovery may be part of
the reason why Canadians feel so insecure regarding their jobs. In the aggregate,
it seems as if the economy adjusts to structural change more through depressed
hiring than increased layoffs.
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the full publication.
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