Some better news from our friends at Stats Canada on Friday, showing that Employment was up a little bit in February and unemployment stayed pretty static, so all in all a push, but a positive push.
Employment edged up in February (+15,000), bringing total gains over the past three months to 115,000. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 7.8%. Over the past 12 months, employment has risen by 1.9% (+322,000).
If there are 322,000 more folks working is a good thing for the economy, and the government, since there are more folks who are paying taxes, and injecting more money into the economy (hopefully).
The nasty little secret in these numbers follows:
Part-time employment rose by 39,000 in February, partly offset by a decline in full-time work. Over the past 12 months, part-time employment has grown by 5.1% (+166,000), while full time increased by 1.1% (+156,000).
So really only 156,000 full time jobs have been created, whereas there are a lot more folks that are working part time. Are these folks working 2 or 3 jobs? Are they new grads who can’t find jobs? More elaboration is really needed for these numbers.
The unemployment staying static is OK, but we still have much higher unemployment than in the “hay days” of a few years ago.
In February, the number of self-employed workers increased by 26,000, while the number of private sector employees edged down and public sector employment changed little. Over the past 12 months, however, self-employment edged down 0.6%, while the pace of growth for private sector employees matched that of the public sector (+2.4%).
So equal growth in Public and Private sector is encouraging, wonder why there are less self-employed folks? Are these contract folks who wanted to actually get benefits?
The Big Table
As usual here is one of the big tables that Stats Canada includes with their data, look and see where you fit in this data:
Labour force characteristics by age and sex
| Jan 2011 |
Feb 2011 |
Jan to Feb 2011 |
Feb 2010 to Feb 2011 | Jan to Feb 2011 |
Feb 2010 to Feb 2011 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seasonally adjusted | ||||||
| thousands | change in thousands | % change | ||||
| Both sexes, 15 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 27,840.8 | 27,866.5 | 25.7 | 341.9 | 0.1 | 1.2 |
| Labour force | 18,664.2 | 18,678.0 | 13.8 | 250.8 | 0.1 | 1.4 |
| Employment | 17,214.5 | 17,229.6 | 15.1 | 321.7 | 0.1 | 1.9 |
| Full-time | 13,866.9 | 13,843.1 | -23.8 | 156.1 | -0.2 | 1.1 |
| Part-time | 3,347.6 | 3,386.5 | 38.9 | 165.6 | 1.2 | 5.1 |
| Unemployment | 1,449.6 | 1,448.5 | -1.1 | -70.9 | -0.1 | -4.7 |
| Participation rate | 67.0 | 67.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 7.8 | 7.8 | 0.0 | -0.4 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 61.8 | 61.8 | 0.0 | 0.4 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 19.4 | 19.7 | 0.3 | 0.7 | … | … |
| Youths, 15 to 24 years | ||||||
| Population | 4,459.3 | 4,458.8 | -0.5 | -1.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Labour force | 2,875.2 | 2,888.5 | 13.3 | -1.6 | 0.5 | -0.1 |
| Employment | 2,460.3 | 2,475.8 | 15.5 | 25.9 | 0.6 | 1.1 |
| Full-time | 1,286.9 | 1,286.1 | -0.8 | -4.5 | -0.1 | -0.3 |
| Part-time | 1,173.4 | 1,189.7 | 16.3 | 30.3 | 1.4 | 2.6 |
| Unemployment | 414.9 | 412.7 | -2.2 | -27.5 | -0.5 | -6.2 |
| Participation rate | 64.5 | 64.8 | 0.3 | 0.0 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 14.4 | 14.3 | -0.1 | -0.9 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 55.2 | 55.5 | 0.3 | 0.6 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 47.7 | 48.1 | 0.4 | 0.8 | … | … |
| Men, 25 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 11,437.9 | 11,451.1 | 13.2 | 169.8 | 0.1 | 1.5 |
| Labour force | 8,352.3 | 8,351.0 | -1.3 | 134.5 | 0.0 | 1.6 |
| Employment | 7,791.2 | 7,783.1 | -8.1 | 191.0 | -0.1 | 2.5 |
| Full-time | 7,171.0 | 7,155.0 | -16.0 | 142.2 | -0.2 | 2.0 |
| Part-time | 620.2 | 628.2 | 8.0 | 48.9 | 1.3 | 8.4 |
| Unemployment | 561.0 | 567.9 | 6.9 | -56.5 | 1.2 | -9.0 |
| Participation rate | 73.0 | 72.9 | -0.1 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 6.7 | 6.8 | 0.1 | -0.8 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 68.1 | 68.0 | -0.1 | 0.7 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 8.0 | 8.1 | 0.1 | 0.5 | … | … |
| Women, 25 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 11,943.6 | 11,956.5 | 12.9 | 173.2 | 0.1 | 1.5 |
| Labour force | 7,436.7 | 7,438.6 | 1.9 | 118.0 | 0.0 | 1.6 |
| Employment | 6,963.0 | 6,970.6 | 7.6 | 104.8 | 0.1 | 1.5 |
| Full-time | 5,408.9 | 5,402.0 | -6.9 | 18.4 | -0.1 | 0.3 |
| Part-time | 1,554.1 | 1,568.7 | 14.6 | 86.5 | 0.9 | 5.8 |
| Unemployment | 473.7 | 467.9 | -5.8 | 13.1 | -1.2 | 2.9 |
| Participation rate | 62.3 | 62.2 | -0.1 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 6.4 | 6.3 | -0.1 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 58.3 | 58.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 22.3 | 22.5 | 0.2 | 0.9 | … | … |
