Preamble to the Series
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was created in 2008 to inform Canadians of the realities of residential schools. The TRC did much more than this, however, leaving Canadians with 94 calls to action. CDPs have a role to play, even though there are only four explicit references to employment concerns in the 94 petitions:
- #7 “…eliminate educational and employment gaps between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.”
- #23 “…increase the number of Aboriginal professionals working in the health-care field.”
- #84 “…[enable the CBC to increase] equitable access for Aboriginal peoples to jobs, leadership positions, and professional development opportunities within the organization.”
- #92 “…[corporate sector to] ensure that Aboriginal peoples have equitable access to jobs, training, and education opportunities in the corporate sector…”
This series of summaries, in honour of National Truth and Reconciliation Week, reviews the progress of reconciliation from the very limited perspective of work-related concerns: employment, education, training, and income.
Employment Changes
The current summary highlights some core information about the current state of affairs in Indigenous peoples’ employment in Canada and how it has changed in the past few years. The calls to action were published in 2015; have they had an impact?
The statistical information here is incomplete and is not definitive regarding changes to Indigenous employment. The pandemic interrupted all employment-related trends, and the aftermath of the interruption is still not known. Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey is very comprehensive but does not include information about Indigenous peoples living on reserve or in settlements, thereby leaving out roughly 40% of the First Nations population or 23% of the Indigenous population. The national census is extremely comprehensive and includes on-reserve data[1], but its information is gathered only every five years. The reader is cautioned to use the information here as a prompt for reflection rather than for drawing conclusions.
Employment for Those Living Off-Reserve
The chart below provides, for 25-64-year-olds who are Indigenous and live on-reserve, Indigenous who live off-reserve, and non-Indigenous, two indicators of activity in the labour market: unemployment rate (percentage of those wanting to work but not currently working) and participation rate (percentage of the population who are working or want to work). Theoretically, if the TRC calls to action were enacted effectively, we would expect to see the Indigenous unemployment and participation rates move closer to the non-Indigenous rates.
The shaded cells have the key numbers. The ratios of Indigenous vs. non-Indigenous populations should be getting closer to 1.0 (i.e., their rates are the same). For those living on reserve (green cells), the unemployment rate is getting closer to the non-Indigenous rate. However, the participation rate is dropping, often an indication that people have given up looking for work.
For those living off-reserve (yellow cells), the unemployment ratio is slightly better in 2021 than 2011 and the participation ratio shows an increase.
| Census Year Population | 2011 | 2016 | 2021 | |||
| Rate (%) | Ratio to Non-Indigenous Rate | Rate (%) | Ratio to Non-Indigenous Rate | Rate (%) | Ratio to Non-Indigenous Rate | |
| Unemployment rate | ||||||
| On-reserve | n/a | n/a | 22.2 | 3.6 | 16.4 | 2.0 |
| Off-reserve | 13.0 | 1.7 | 11.6 | 1.9 | 12.7 | 1.5 |
| Non-Indigenous | 7.8 | 1.0 | 6.1 | 1.0 | 8.4 | 1.0 |
| Participation rate | ||||||
| On-reserve | n/a | n/a | 61.0 | 0.75 | 56.5 | .70 |
| Off-reserve | 66.0 | 0.8 | 74.9 | 0.92 | 73.3 | .90 |
| Non-Indigenous | 81.0 | 1.0 | 81.0 | 1.0 | 81.0 | 1.0 |
There are many important employment-related concerns besides those represented here, some of which will be addressed in this series.
[1] Enumeration was not done at all or not completed in 63 reserves and settlements due to circumstances such as evacuations, pandemic health and safety restrictions, or lack of Band permission.
Responses