Aboriginal People in Manitoba 2000Chapter 6 : Labour and Income |
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The Aboriginal Labour Force
Overall, Manitoba’s labour market participation rate of Aboriginal adults aged 15+ was 54.1% in 1996. This is down from 59.6% in 1991, though part of the difference is the more restricted “Aboriginal-identity” group captured by the 1996 Census. The Census whose wording most closely relates to the current wording was 1981. 3 In that year, the labour market participation rate was 55.9%. Therefore, there is no indication of an increase in Aboriginal labour market participation from 1981 to 1996.
The 1996 Aboriginal unemployment rate was 25.3%. This is up from 20.0% in 1991 and 23.9% in 1981. 4 Therefore, the employment rate has fluctuated from 42.5% in 1981, to 47.7% in 1991, to 40.4% in 1996. Deficiencies in the 1991 data may account for the apparent “spike” in the 1991 rate. There is no evidence of improvement in Aboriginal labour market statistics in 1981 to 1996, and there may have been some deterioration.
The Aboriginal unemployment rate in Manitoba in 1996 was 325% that of the total population. The national relative unemployment ratio was 243%, and only in Saskatchewan was the ratio higher, at 361%. Similarly, Manitoba had the second lowest relative participation rate among the provinces. Aboriginal people were 81% as likely as the total population to participate in the labour market, compared to a Canadian average of 90% as likely.5
Aboriginal unemployment rates are higher at all levels of education. College completion for Aboriginal people has little effect on their unemployment rate (18%) as compared to high school completers (19.7%), so that the increased employment rate among college graduates is due to higher labour market participation (80% vs. 71% for high school completers). Even among the relatively few Aboriginal university graduates, the unemployment rate is 9.8% — 2½ times the rate for non-Aboriginal alumnae. The unemployment rate for Aboriginal alumnae is still almost twice as high as for non-Aboriginal people who have merely completed high school (5.5%).
However, Aboriginal labour market participation rates increase with level of education, to the point that Aboriginal people who have completed college or university are actually more likely to participate than non-Aboriginal people of equivalent education. Higher education helps close the employment gap for Aboriginal people only because it is associated with increased labour market participation. The relative employment odds for Aboriginal people versus non-Aboriginal people are 79.4% for high school graduates, 87.8% for college graduates, and 98.8% for university graduates.
The actual number of unemployed people in Manitoba in 1996 who identified themselves as Aboriginal was 11,065. The number is large in comparison with the Aboriginal labour force, but small as a percentage of the total Canadian unemployed population. In no province or territory does the number of unemployed Aboriginal people exceed 15,000 6 (based on the standard definition of “unemployment”).
It will be a significant public challenge merely to maintain current Aboriginal employment rates in coming years, due to the large numbers of young Aboriginal people entering the labour market. A 1998 Conference Board of Canada report 7 estimated that an additional 160,000 Aboriginal people would need to find work by 2006 to maintain employment levels – a 50% in increase in the number employed. The report added that Manitoba and Saskatchewan would be particularly challenged, due to larger Aboriginal relative to total population, and lower projected job creation than other provinces such as B.C., Alberta and Ontario.
On the other hand, Manitoba’s recent job creation record has been strong, unemployment is now the lowest among the 10 provinces, and its Aboriginal labour force is the province’s most under-utilized human resource. There is nothing inevitable about this. About 50% of current employees of Northwest Company are Aboriginal, as are 14% of Syncrude employees in northeast Alberta – a proportion exceeding the local share of the population.8
The 1991 Aboriginal Peoples’ Survey asked respondents about problems they encountered in looking for work. Nationally, 77% of Metis and 80% of North American Indians indicated they encountered one or more problems. The most frequently cited problem was that there were few or no jobs in the area where they lived (62% of Metis and 66% of First Nations). Also, 42% of Metis and 41% of Indians said their education or work experience did not match the available jobs, and 22% of Metis and 27% of Indians said they did not have enough information about available jobs. Eighteen per cent of Indians and 11.5% of Metis said “being an Aboriginal person” was a problem in finding jobs, and about 15% of women said they could not find anyone to look after children while they searched for jobs.9
It is important to understand that labour market indicators vary significantly for Aboriginal people depending on group and location. Studies showing higher labour market participation and lower unemployment off reserve than on reserve tell only part of the story, because the off-reserve component includes Metis as well as Status Indians, and both urban and rural off-reserve locations. National studies of this type do not apply in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The difference between on and off-reserve indicators in these two provinces is less than in other provinces,10 and disappears entirely when we look at just the Metis, or just Status Indians.
