The labour market Behind the scenes

Every month, Statistics Canada publishes data about the labour market. Invariably, for decades now, it has been the job numbers that attract the greatest interest. Yet, there is one aspect that is very important and that remains in the shadows: the unemployed. This analysis presents a snapshot for the year 2014. It reveals, among other things, that there is no such thing as the “average” unemployed worker; that unemployment affects many people, and that no-one is immune to it, whether male or female, old or young, with or without a diploma. This picture of the unemployed in 2014 is quite enlightening: it shows that there can be no single solution for reducing unemployment in Quebec.