![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.livabl.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/canadian-housing-job.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPhoto: GotCredit<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n A top-ranking official with Canada\u2019s central bank suggests high housing costs are holding the country\u2019s labour market back.<\/p>\n Bank of Canada Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn A. Wilkins says investing in employees through training and education, for example, is one way to boost the labour market \u2014 but it isn\u2019t the only approach needed.<\/p>\n The availability of affordable housing plays an important part, too.<\/p>\n\n “What is less prominent in discussions on how to improve the job market is supporting worker mobility\u2014this would help businesses attract the right people for the job,\u201d reads the official text of a speech Wilkins delivered before the Toronto Region Board of Trade late last month.<\/p>\n \u201cAffordable housing is front and centre. It is to a large extent an issue of supply,” Wilkins continues.<\/p>\n In major employment centres such as Toronto and Vancouver, housing costs have soared out of reach for many Canadians.<\/p>\n According to a recent RBC Economics study<\/a>, a typical Toronto household would have to save 102 months for a downpayment on an average home. In Vancouver, the path to a downpayment is even more daunting: a median-earning household would require 340 months \u2014 that\u2019s 28 years \u2014 for a 20-percent downpayment.<\/p>\n Beyond addressing these dire affordability issues, more open trade between the province’s would also boost employment, Wilkins says.<\/p>\n Another issue for the job market is transportation infrastructure in the country’s major job markets. Experts have long noted how improved transit can ease housing affordability woes as it allows workers to live farther from employment centres, easing at least some demand for more centrally located housing.<\/p>\n When in 2017 the then-Liberal government of Ontario announced it was moving ahead with plans for high-speed rail connecting Toronto and Windsor, one economist noted it improve housing affordability once complete.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there was quicker and better transit to areas beyond the very supply constrained area within the Green Belt, then it would take some pressure off for sure,\u201d BMO Senior Economist Robert Kavcic said in an interview at the time<\/a>.<\/p>\n