Aging workforce affecting Canada’s labour market: RBC

No need to wait any longer for the baby boom retirement shock to hit the economy — it’s already here, according to a new report on trends in Canada’s labour force, reports The Canadian Press.

In a fresh analysis on employment, Royal Bank economist Nathan Janzen notes that the steady decline in the so-called participation rate continues even as the unemployment rate drops.

The most likely explanation is that many Canadians are dropping out of the workforce because they are retiring. And the trend is likely to become more noticeable going forward, Janzen said.

The best evidence that aging is the critical factor at play is the data on those Canadians who tell Statistics Canada each month that they are “not in the workforce” voluntarily.

From October 2008 to April 2014, that category has risen by more than a million, but most of those — 682,000 — were in the 65 years and older cohort.

“This suggests that all of the decline in the Canadian participation rate since the 2008-09 recession can be explained by the aging of the population and a resulting increase in retirements,” the report concludes.
 
 

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