Labour Market Insights
The Impacts of COVID-19 Lockdown and Stay at Home Orders on Job Search and Demand in Windsor-Essex for January 2021
Windsor-Essex has been in the Grey-Lockdown tier of Ontario’s COVID-19 Response Framework since December 14, 2020, with a Stay at Home order effective January 14, 2021. These measures are in place until at least February 11. The lockdown, as well as the Stay at Home order, has a significant impact on employers and employment, as many businesses are not able to remain open or have to reduce their hours and staffing. With residents of Windsor-Essex under Stay at Home orders, many are only leaving their homes for essential reasons, such as for groceries or for medical appointments.
January 2021 saw 3,218 active job postings from 1,982 companies, up from 3,089 total active job postings from 1,066 companies in December 2020. The Job Board received 20,856 interactions (an increase of 60.2% from 13,023 interactions in December) from 6,759 users (an increase of 64.5% from the previous month).
The significant increase of both job postings and those looking for work is encouraging. This could point to businesses and jobseekers looking forward, past the current lockdown and Stay at Home orders, and thinking about what their businesses and work life will look like post-February 11.
The top searched-for occupations overall in Windsor-Essex for January 2021 were:
Administrative Assistants; Other Customer and Information Services Representatives; Material Handlers; Other Labourers in Processes, Manufacturing and Utilities; and Retail Salespersons.
The top searched-for occupations by men in Windsor-Essex for January 2021 were:
Material Handlers; Other Labourers in Processing, Manufacturing and Utilities; Delivery and Courier Service Drivers; Retail Salespersons; and Janitors, Caretakers and Building Superintendents.
The top searched-for occupations by women in Windsor-Essex for January 2021 were:
Administrative Assistants; Other Customer and Information Services Representatives; Receptionists; Medical Administrative Assistants; and Home Support Workers, Housekeepers and Related Occupations.
December 2020 saw a higher search instance of Store Shelf Stockers, Clerks and Order Fillers. January 2021 saw that occupation fall to tenth overall (with 307 search instances) and eighth for both women (106 search instances) and men (76 search instances). This may be due to those jobs being filled over the course of the previous month as grocery stores and other essential retail businesses hired on more people to fill these essential positions as the lockdown and pandemic continued.
The top ten in-demand occupations by local employers for January 2021 were:
Transport Truck Drivers; Home Support Workers, Housekeepers and Related Occupations; Retail Salespersons; Material Handlers; Nursery and Greenhouse Workers; Administrative Assistants; Delivery and Courier Service Drivers; Security Guards and Related Security Service Occupations; Retail and Wholesale Trade Managers; and Food Counter Attendants, Kitchen Helpers and Related Support Occupations.
We continue to see an increase in demand for Security Guards and Related Security Service Occupations, up 14% from December 2020, likely due to the increase in need for COVID-19 safety measure enforcements in businesses across all sectors.
Also of note is the increase in demand for Food Counter Attendants, Kitchen Helpers and Related Support Occupations, up 14.3% from December 2020. Food Counter Attendants, Kitchen Helpers and Related Support Occupations are employed by restaurants, cafes, fast food outlets, cafeterias, hotels, hospitals, and other establishments. This could point to an increased need for kitchen help as businesses look to reopen or increase offerings later in February. It can also point to the new trend of ghost kitchens and virtual restaurants, which are professional kitchens set up for the preparation of delivery-only food.
As for the top hiring sectors by six-digit NAICS, Full Service Restaurants are starting to hire more, likely in anticipation of loosening restrictions as the region looks to move out of lockdown and the Stay at Home orders. Some manufacturing sectors, such as Industrial Mould Manufacturing and Automobile and Light-Duty Motor Vehicle Manufacturing, are hiring more, which is a positive sign for the region.
Looking at the top hiring sectors by two-digit NAICS shows an increase in job postings for the overall Manufacturing sector with 365 job postings in January 2021 (an increase of 26.3% from 289 job postings in December). The Administrative and Support, Waste Management and Remediation Services sector remains the top hiring sector by two-digit NAICS from the previous month, from 437 job postings in December 2020 to 500 job postings in January 2021, for an increase of 14.4%. The Administrative and Support, Waste Management and Remediation Services sector also includes job postings from employment agencies, which would explain why it is always high on the list.
The top 20 in-demand jobs overall for the year 2020 speak largely to how our lives and work changed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. When compared to the top 20 in-demand jobs of 2019, there are some stark differences, even though the demand for some occupations remain the same.
Over both years, Retail Salespersons topped the chart as the most in-demand job in Windsor-Essex, with 1,433 job postings (5.4% of total job postings) in 2019 and 1,478 (5.6% of total job postings) in 2020. From there we see an increase in demand of certain occupations in 2020 over 2019, such as Transport Truck Drivers (up 76% in 2020); Delivery and Courier Service Drivers (up 18% in 2020); Store Shelf Stockers, Clerks and Order Fillers (up 7.8% in 2020), and Home Support Workers, Housekeepers and Related Occupations (up 5.6% in 2020).
Interestingly, one of the occupations we’ve seen an increase in demand for over recent months, Security Guards and Related Security Service Occupations, remained relatively unchanged from 2019.
Some occupations decreased in demand from 2019 to 2020, including Food and Beverage Servers (down 43.2% in 2020) and Cooks (down 22.8% in 2020), which points to the restrictions placed on restaurants during the pandemic.
THE FINDINGS OF THIS REPORT WERE SOURCED FROM:
MONTHLY JOB DEMAND REPORT
ABOUT THIS REPORT:
As of April 2019, the monthly Job Demand Report for Windsor-Essex is created by Workforce WindsorEssex using data collected from 14 unique national, provincial and locally-significant job boards. Between May 2017 and March 2019, job posting data was purchased from CEB Talent Neuron.
MONTHLY JOB SEARCH REPORT
The monthly Job Search Report for Windsor-Essex is created by Workforce WindsorEssex using data collected from four job finding tools, including WEexplore, WEmap jobs, WEjobs board, and the Bridge Timeline Tool. Gender and age information of users is voluntarily shared with the organization.
Questions? Please contact: info@workforcewindsoressex.com.
