To end the week let’s wander around the financial world this week:
- If you were planning on giving a gift card for Christmas, careful where you buy them from. Evidently “Mall” gift cards (i.e. a gift card for all the participating stores in the Mall), are not covered yet under the new Consumer Protection Act in Canada. This means they can have expiration dates and all the other dirty tricks that used to haunt this “gift giving vehicle” so keep that in mind.
- The Canadian Capitalist posted a whole bunch of fun gift ideas on his blog, hope he has a good Christmas Saving Plan in place to pay for all of them.
- There are more foreign born folk in Canada than in the past 75 years (19.8%), being the child of immigrant parents, I am proud to say immigrants helped make Canada what it is today.
- Unemployment bounced a little for October with it going up for the first time in a while to 5.9%, the Manufacturing sector took a big hit with the stronger dollar and new job seekers (students and immigrants) both added to this number as well. Is this a sign of what is to come?
I know it’s a bit late, but if you looked at the linked article for the unemployment figures, you’ll notice that they do make mention that the “employment rate” (% of people of working age that are working) of 63.8% is at an all-time high. So, they do keep track of both numbers and both are important in figuring out the employment situation.
And if by proffesional you mean, “Well paid”, you are correct, I know someone who works at Stats Canada and they are paid well.
The validity of the data, we can argue, for fun.
–C8j
Well, I guess you will never get a perfect unemployment number. Maybe the way they sugar coat the situation is really the best answer. After all they’re the professionals.
True enough,
My only concern is then you need to take into account a “laziness quotient” too then.
How many people aren’t looking because they are lazy + folks that aren’t effective at work because they are lazy + men who’s wives think they are lazy = a freaking huge number.
I count myself in the laziness quotient, in fact I think I am counted twice!
–C8j
http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo10a.htm
According to that chart there are then 4,424,000 over 65. For ease sake I’ll say this plus 20% of the people above 60 (340,000) are retired.
Lets say 2% of the population above 15 are disabled (out of my head, co stats) and unable to work. So that’s around 530,000 or so.
How many are at school and not working . . . hmmm, I don’t know where to pull that stat so I’ll say half of all people 15-24, or 2,200,000.
So, then we have this . . .
Population 15+: 26693500
Employed: 17028600
Retired: 4764000
Disabled: 530000
School: 2200000
Unemployed: 2170900
Unemployed Rate: 8.1%
Not Working Rate: 36.2%
Better? I’m not sure how we can get how many are in school and how many of them are working part time, and all that jazz. That’s far too much work for me. Otherwise I’d have to apply for a job at Stats Canada or something 🙂
I need to read up on how they come up with their percentage, but it seems to me it only takes in to account people actively looking for work vs people working, rather than people able to work who are not vs working. In my view, that’s skewed. In my opinion it should be nice and simple at “Not Working / Able Bodies = Unemployment rate”. Sweet simple, and easy to figure out.
Whoa now, let’s not get overly dramatic here either.
Your unemployed number includes:
* Retirees
* Disabled
* At school
* Those who choose not to work
Which brings the number down a fair amount as well. I don’t view Stats Canada as “cooking the books” too much.
–C8j
I could see us jumping for joy if the participation rate was higher. If you calculate the unemployment rate based on population however things aren’t as nice looking.
Population 15+: 26,693,500
Employed Labour Force: 17,028,600
Unemployed: 9,664,900
Unemployment Rate: 36.2%.
Sure, if you take out everyone that doesn’t make the stat look nice it looks way better.