If we were to roll back the clock on Canadian manufacturing productivity to what it was 20 years ago, three-quarters of a million more people would have been needed to produce today’s level of output in that sector. But the manufacturing jobs lost were offset with gains elsewhere.
Roughly 82 per cent of the prime-age population is now employed, about 13 percentage points higher than 40 years ago. Other past technological advances did not lead to a sustained rise in overall unemployment either. Let me use agriculture to illustrate the economic mechanisms that have helped us adapt and thrive in the past, which are often underemphasized.