AI Analysis: Labour force characteristics by census metropolitan area, three-month moving average, seasonally adjusted

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada's Table 14100459 tracks labour force characteristics across Canadian census metropolitan areas from January 2011 to February 2026, revealing a steadily expanding workforce with employment growing by approximately 3.97 million people (+23.2%) over 15 years. The data remains remarkably stable throughout the period with one critical exception: the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 caused unprecedented disruptions, driving the unemployment rate to a peak of 13.5% in June 2020 and the employment rate to a historic low of 57.4% in April 2020. Despite the pandemic shock, Canada's labour market has largely recovered, with the unemployment rate falling to 6.7% by February 2026 — 1.1 percentage points lower than at the start of the dataset.

Key Findings

• Canada's working-age population grew by nearly 7 million persons (+25.2%) over the 15-year period, reaching 34.7 million by February 2026, outpacing labour force growth and contributing to slight declines in the participation rate (-2.8%) and employment rate (-1.6%).
• Employment rose by approximately 3.97 million people (+23.2%) to reach 21.1 million by February 2026, while the labour force expanded by 4 million persons (+21.6%) to 22.6 million.
• The unemployment rate improved over the full period, falling by 1.1 percentage points (-14.1%) to 6.7%, even as the absolute number of unemployed persons rose modestly by 51,100 (+3.5%).
• All 15 detected statistical outliers in the dataset occurred during the COVID-19 period in 2020, with the unemployment rate peaking at 13.5% in June 2020 and the employment rate hitting a record low of 57.4% in April 2020 — both far outside their normal ranges.
• The dataset is heavily right-skewed, with a mean value of 4,525.93 versus a median of just 39.10, driven by large national population counts (averaging 30,530 thousands) coexisting with small percentage-based rate metrics in the same column.
• Population, Labour Force, and Employment are strongly positively correlated as expected, while the Unemployment Rate and Employment Rate exhibit a strong negative correlation, moving in opposite directions across the business cycle.
• Outside of the 2020 COVID-19 disruption, Canada's labour market data shows remarkable stability across the full 15-year coverage period, with no other significant anomalies detected in any of the seven tracked labour force characteristics.