Some Aspects of the Nature and Duration of Unemployment in Canada

This paper reviews recent developments in unemployment research and policy, and their implications. Two international comparisons suggest that the tendency for the unemployed to exit the labour force rather than find employment may be weaker in Canada than in the U.S. and that layoffs may be less important here. Three recent studies of the impact of unemployment insurance on unemployment duration in Canada are found faulty, because they fail to to account of the difference between survey-measured and analytically relevant duration.