Unemployment Rate for July Down
Why is it I always seem to go opposite to the going trends? On Friday our friends at Stats Canada came out with a new employment figures for the month of July.
Well, the figures may not take into consideration my actual “down sizing”, but it is a bit confusing to find out that even though Employment dropped, Unemployment also dropped, with the following “interesting” explanation from Stats Canada.
Following gains at the beginning of 2008, and little change from April to June, employment dropped by 55,000 in July. The unemployment rate edged down 0.1 percentage points to 6.1%, as many people, particularly youth, left the labour force….
Most of the employment losses in July were in part time, down 48,000. Over the last 12 months, however, part-time employment has grown by 3.5%, much faster than the 0.9% growth in full time.
So part time jobs are starting to dry up? Not sure if that is good or bad, but with unemployment dropping, what does that really mean? Hopefully the number of jobs is not dropping (speaking as a person looking for a job).
If You Don’t Write it Down?
One of the ways I cope with stress is to start writing lists down of things that I must do (specifically at least a Financial List), so I don’t forget important things (another thing I do under stress (forget that is)). I believe it was a Tom Clancy novel that had the quote, “If you don’t write it down, how do you know it happened?”, which I can extrapolate to, if I don’t write it down, how do I know it will happen?
I will now have multiple lists to complete or deal with in terms of things that must be done by the end of August, and September, and after that.
End of August Financial List should include:
- Creating a lock in retirement account of some sort for pension transferals.
- Investigate CCRA rules about pension transferals, because, I am going to get badly dinged if things go as they are described in my severance package. This may mean, talking to an accountant.
- Open personal RRSP account for all of the various pieces of my severance and savings packages that should be transferred away from my current carrier.
- Fix my resume because my resume sucks. OK this isn’t financial, but it is important, and needs to be done this week, not by the end of the month!!!
- etc., etc., etc.,
As you can see this barely scratches the surface of financial tasks that I must take care of, and in fact I have a myriad of other non-financial tasks that I must tackle in short order as well. The problem I have is I also procrastinate in these situations, which does not help either.
The positive side of this is, I need to go into my bank, and I believe with a list of the assets I am about to transfer to them, I may be able to convince them, they might want to give me Free Banking again! Let’s hope.
