June 11, 2026
Vancouver B.C.
If you just read the headline, you would think the economy is back on track. It is not. Not yet. Since January, Canada has shed a net 24,000 jobs. The employment rate has not budged in a year, and unemployment has been above pre-pandemic norms for over two years. And if you have lost your job, it is harder to find a new one: just 26.3% of unemployed Canadians found work in May, which is well below the pre-pandemic average of 31.5%.
Then there is the wage story. Wages grew by just 3.0%, down sharply from 4.5% the month before. When your paycheque is barely keeping pace with the cost of groceries, gas, and rent, a strong jobs headline does not feel like relief. For lower-income workers already seeing slower wage growth than those at the top, ever-growing expenses make the squeeze even tighter.
Vancity is a values-based financial co-operative serving the needs of its 588,000 member-owners and their communities, with offices and more than 60 branches located in Metro Vancouver and Squamish, the Fraser Valley, the Sunshine Coast, the Vancouver and Gulf Islands and Alert Bay, within the territories of the Coast Salish and Kwakwaka'wakw Peoples. With $41 billion in assets plus assets under administration, Vancity is Canada's largest credit union. Vancity uses its assets to help improve the financial well-being of its members while at the same time helping to develop healthy communities that are socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable.
