Canada’s Action Plan – Job-vacancy rate plunges as Kijiji data are dropped

The Conservative government has quietly adjusted its labour data to ignore job postings from Kijiji and similar websites, a change that essentially erases the dire warnings of labour shortages that Ottawa has used as justification for expanding the controversial temporary foreign worker program. 

With these sites removed from the source data, the government’s latest labour market report points to a job vacancy rate of 1.5 per cent, which is dramatically less than the 4 per cent vacancy rate Finance Canada warned of on budget day.

The government has repeatedly pointed to concerns over skills shortages as the reasoning for a number of its decisions, including expansion of the temporary foreign worker program and tightening the eligibility rules for employment insurance.

The temporary foreign worker program has come under intense criticism after it was revealed that businesses were bringing in workers while Canadians said they were being denied work.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at  Job-vacancy rate plunges as Tories drop Kijiji data – The Globe and Mail.

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