Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I also want thank all of the officials for their excellent work and for being here today.
As Mr. Chambers said, these budgets are huge amounts of work, and I really appreciate everybody's being here.
I just want to comment off the top very quickly. I think Mr. Chambers asked some really excellent questions, and I think we'll get some additional information from you.
For those who are listening, it's really important, when we're making comparisons with the time before COVID to take into consideration the geopolitical situation and crisis that's under way right now, and the high levels of inflation that haven't been seen in almost three decades, which we're experiencing right now.
We're still fighting COVID. We're still helping the Canadian economy to recover in many ways. As to whether inflation will staying high for the next five years, I don't think anybody can make any prediction given the fact that the world is highly unpredictable right now. I just wanted to provide some of those additional comments because I think it's important for us to have those in mind as we have this conversation.
My first question is about the labour market and jobs recovery. My understanding is that Canada has recovered quite well in terms of jobs recovery to where we were when COVID first started. My understanding is that we recovered about 112% of the jobs, whereas in the United States, I think their employment levels are still 2.3% below prepandemic levels.
Can someone confirm that, please?