Some of that was true. But not everywhere, and it wasn’t the whole story. And also, however tight the labour market was, it isn’t anymore. Beyond the top-line unemployment number, there were always signs that workers weren’t actually benefitting all that much from how in-demand they were. 

Adam D.K. King is an assistant professor in the labour studies program at the University of Manitoba. He wrote a piece on unemployment in The Maple. “It’s probably worse news than we are recognizing because [the unemployment rate is] not counting all these other people that are negatively affected. Another thing to keep in mind too is that anytime you see unemployment officially rise, there are segments of the labor force that suffer first and worst. Those tend to be racialized workers, those tend to be new immigrants, new Canadians,” said King.

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Urquia, who wasn’t involved with this study, has researched adverse birth outcomes among immigrants, as well as refugee maternal and perinatal health. He and his colleagues found that refugee mothers had higher maternal health risks and more adverse birth outcomes.

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