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Ontario’s labour market went through a period of rapid changes between 2019 and 2022. The global pandemic that shut down much of the province’s economy drove the unemployment rate to 14 per cent by May 2020. Not long after, in 2021 and 2022, a rapid recovery pushed the unemployment rate back down to 5.3 per cent in December 2022. Rising wages and increased job vacancy rates were clear signs of tight labour markets as 2022 came to a close.
These rapid shifts in labour market outcomes did not change two funda- mental aspects of racialized workers’ labour market experience in Ontario: First, racialized and Black workers continue to have higher unemployment rates and lower employment rates than white workers, and second, earnings of racialized and Black workers continue to lag those of white workers. These data show that in 2022, on a weekly basis, racialized men earned 90 cents for every dollar that white men earned while Black men earned 77 cents. Racialized women earned 71 cents for every dollar that white men earned, Black women earned 68 cents for every dollar that white men earned, and white women earned 80 cents for every dollar that white men earned.
These data, once again, confirm that a rising tide does not lift all boats. Clearly, further policy interventions are needed to address the continued gaps in labour market outcomes for much of the racialized labour force, and for Black workers, in particular.