By Tom Parkin
September 17th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Doug Ford’s “look harder” comment explains why Ontario has no jobs plan: because he denies there’s an unemployment problem.
There were 7,000 fewer job openings in Ontario at the end of June than March and there were more than 200,000 fewer openings than June 30, 2022, according to a Statistics Canada report released Tuesday morning.
The data comes just days after Ontario Premier Doug Ford dismissed job-searchers’ concerns in front of a downtown Toronto business audience.
Doug Ford: “Young people who can’t find work aren’t looking “hard enough,”
“It drives me nuts” when young people today say they can’t find work, Ford complained to the business crowd as they tucked into their lunch. “If you look hard enough” the jobs are there, the premier said.
800,000 job-seekers, just 179,000 job openings
But that’s not what the data shows.
Over 800,000 Ontarians were job-searching in August, according to StatsCan. That’s more than four times the 179,000 job openings reported as of June 30.
Vacancies have been trending down for three years, and now have fallen by more than half since June, 2022, when there were 378,000 Ontario job openings.
Currently, just 2.6 per cent of Ontario jobs are open, the second-worst rate among the provinces. Only in Newfoundland and Labrador are the odds worse for job-hunters.
British Columbia continues to be the best province for job-searchers with 3.3 per cent of jobs needing workers.
It is not just Ontario .Every province has the same issue.As a Senior I know a lot of older people having trouble finding help as they are being encouraged by government to stay in their homes longer.Huge opportunities for young entrepreneurs.
If Carney is not able and it doesn’t look that he is …… to stabilize trade relationships with the USA and China and eliminate or significantly reduce sectoral tariffs the employment situation will get much worse.
This constant deflection and side show about building European trade and continuing to gift and or finance the Ukraine is irresponsible governance in the short and medium term
Is it past time for remigration?
Freeland should be willing to help the Ukraine on a pro bono /volunteer basis rather than receiving a financial gift from the god father of one of her children at taxpayer expense.
Liberal cronyism is alive and well with Trudeau 2.0