Blog

The impact of COVID-19 on rural employment up to September, 2020

Date: October 21, 2020

New special issue of “Focus on Rural Ontario” highlights the impact of Covid-19 on rural employemnt in Ontario with a comparison to the impact on rural employment in other provinces.

In rural Ontario in September, 2020, the calculated employment gap had closed: September rural employment was 2.5% above the level in September, 2019 -- but was 4% below the level in September, 2018.

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Institute for Research on Public Policy Article on the Urgent Need for an Agri-food Labour Strategy

Date: October 2, 2020

The article written by Sen. Rob Black, Mary Robinson (Canadian Federation of Agriculture), and Portia MacDonald- Dewhirst (Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council), shows the need for a resilient national labour strategy that will not only stabilize the availability of workers throughout the pandemic and beyond, but will also include strategies for introducing widespread skill development measures, labour saving technologies and better labour market intelligence.  

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