Still Struggling: Racialized Workers in the Post-Pandemic Labour Market

The pandemic clearly illustrated the precarity that many racialized workers experience, disproportionately represented on the front lines, in jobs lacking the job protections, benefits or paid sick days. The recovery has proven to be equally challenging. One of the most notable changes in Canada’s labour market was the sharp reduction in low-waged service sector employment and the simultaneous increase in several higher-paying industries such as professional services and finance. The change in the industrial structure of employment in the context of a very tight labour market helped to narrow the employment gap between racialized and white workers between 2019 and 2022. At the same time, other racialized workers were caught on the wrong side of the recession. This report provides a detailed examination of the fallout of the pandemic and its recovery focusing in on the experiences of racialized workers in the key age group 25 to 54 years, drawing on custom data from Statistics Canada on employment, wages and industrial sector. --Introduction