ABSTRACT
Throughout the 1970s and up to 1982, Canada and the USA experienced similar levels of unemployment. However, starting in 1982, the unemployment rate in Canada has remained approximately 3 percentage points above that of the USA. Over the last fifteen years, European hysteresis better characterizes the Canadian labor market than the American cyclical behavior of the unemployment rate. The rather limited decrease of the Canadian unemployment rate following the 1982 recession combines the American cyclical movement with a positive trend in unemployment more typical of European than of North American countries (see Figure 7.1).
