There's been a certain amount of commentary on the 'lost decade' in the US: zero growth in employment, and the S&P500 is in negative territory. But Canada is not the US: the 2000's (I can't bring myself to use any of the terms I've seen used for the most recent decade) was fairly ordinary when compared to decades gone by.
Here is a graph of employment growth in the past three decades, scaled so that the first January of the decade is equal to 100:
Employment growth in the 2000's was better than in the 1990's, but not as good as in the 1980's.
The same thing goes for the stock market. Here is the same graph for the real (in CPI terms) TSX, again with the first January set equal to zero:
The 1990's look good here, but that decade ended while the tech bubble was in full swing (remember when Nortel was making happy headlines?). The 2000's and the 1980's put in almost identical performances.
Pretty bland stuff. But then again, to paraphrase Bill Davis, bland works for me.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
What does employment look like scaled by population?
The employment rates (employment as a percentage of the working-age population) look like this.
Like the population adjusted graphs you just posted – that was just about what the 80s job market felt like, too.