Labour market slack likely to increase

Government officials insist that much of the slack in the labour market following the 2009 recession has been taken up. Alternative measures, however, contradict this message. Admittedly, the official unemployment rate has declined from its recession high. But this improvement has been greatly exaggerated according to the more telling employment-to-population ratio, which has barely rebounded at all. Moreover, now that Canada's housing market is self-correcting at a time when external economic growth remains sluggish, we suspect that the unemployment rate will begin to edge higher again.