Are Good Jobs Disappearing in Canada?

by René Morissette and Anick Johnson
Statistics Canada

Abstract

Using hourly wage data from the Labour Force Survey as well as previous household surveys covering the 1981-2004 period, we assess whether the relative importance of low-paid jobs and well-paid jobs has changed over the last two decades. Since it is unclear whether trends in wage levels obtained from all the aforementioned surveys are unbiased, we refrain from making definitive statements regarding the evolution of low-paid and well-paid jobs over the 1981-2004 period. When assessing whether well-paid jobs are disappearing in Canada, we focus our attention on recent trends, i.e. on changes in the fraction of jobs falling in certain (real) wage categories during the 1997-2004 period.

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