The businesses that are trying to fill record job vacancies have had to seek out new sources of labour due to a wave of retirements and a skilled-worker shortage. There is a pool of unemployed workers out there that want to enter the workforce because of immigrants often touted as a solution.
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Click here to see other videos from our team. It's easier to get them back to work if you refresh your browser, or Employers are missing out on this pool of potential employees that are eager to work. Mothers face greater barriers when trying to get back to work than fathers, and the younger the children, the bigger the challenge, says a recent C.D. Howe Institute study: Uneven Odds: Men, Women, and the Obstacles to Getting Back to Work with Kids.
The authors Annie Yazhuo Pan, Ana Ferrer and Tammy Schirle analyzed the Labour Force Survey data of the married parents of children aged 18 and younger and discovered that mothers with children under the age of one had the lowest chance of going back to work. As children get older, women are more likely to be working again, and by the time a child is aged seven or older, mothers are six percentage points more likely to be employed than women with two-year-olds.
The same can't be said for fathers. The age of their children has no bearing on when they enter the labour force, highlighting the gap between men and women when it comes to managing children and finding work. It is unlikely that this study will surprise mothers. Women have historically borne the brunt of the child care and home duties, something that is made even more obvious during the epidemic. As layoffs hit their families, women dropped out of the workforce in droves in 2020. Some were leaving to provide care for kids stuck at home due to school and daycare closures. In a piece published by the Financial Post in October 2020, economist Armine Yalnizyann said that women lost 63 per cent of all jobs after the economy shut down in March 2020. When lockdowns eased, schools reopened and jobs returned, women remained out of luck compared to men. There were still 350,000 missing jobs in September 2020. She says that 85 per cent of them were once held by women.
But if Canada is to get mothers back to work, there are other areas that need to be addressed beyond child care, C.D. Howe says something. Fair pay is one. The data shows that in 2021, women made an average of 89 cents for every dollar brought in by men. Howe says something. It recommends that mothers get paid to recoup costs associated with trying to find a job, such as transportation and, yes, child care, and invest more money into programs that provide training for women. Canada's population is aging, and the wave of retirements isn't likely to dissipate any time soon, so the existing labour shortages will be with us for longer. There are a lot of people who want to get back to work if they had support. Employers and governments can agree on the importance of getting more mothers into the workforce.