Our friends at Stats Canada published the Labour Force Survey for May 2012, which shows not much change in terms of Employment or Unemployment, so I guess the Canadian Economy took a break to catch its breath (to sound optimistic)?
Following two months of large gains, employment was unchanged in May, and the unemployment rate remained at 7.3%.
Compared with 12 months earlier, employment increased 1.2% or 203,000. Virtually all of this growth was in full-time work, up 192,000 (+1.4%). The total number of hours worked rose 1.3% over the same period.
So the good news is the growth continues to be in full-time jobs, which is really good (full-time working folks pay taxes, and hopefully have benefits packages too). So even though we didn’t do much last month, year over year, we added 203,000 jobs, so that is a good thing.
It’s hard to be gloomy with a nice graph like that (all sloping up and such, it’s like a crooked smile).
For those who want to see the glass half-empty point of view (i.e. unemployment), here is that graph:
Not really as optimistic looking, not dropping that fast, but still better than nothing. Remember that Unemployment and Employment are not as closely correlated as you might think (check out the Stats Canada site for that explanation, I don’t agree with it, but it’s their data, so I don’t get to complain (too much) about it either).
A Big Table
Yes, I love those big tables from Stats Canada, since the data says a great deal about all of the data. My favorite table from this data set is the employment by age, which I now include for your perusal.
Labour force characteristics by age and sex – Seasonally adjusted
| April 2012 | May 2012 | April to May 2012 | May 2011 to May 2012 | April to May 2012 | May 2011 to May 2012 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| thousands (except rates) | change in thousands (except rates) | % change | ||||
| Both sexes, 15 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 28,242.0 | 28,271.6 | 29.6 | 322.6 | 0.1 | 1.2 |
| Labour force | 18,865.3 | 18,881.0 | 15.7 | 206.4 | 0.1 | 1.1 |
| Employment | 17,494.7 | 17,502.4 | 7.7 | 203.4 | 0.0 | 1.2 |
| Full-time | 14,171.9 | 14,173.3 | 1.4 | 192.2 | 0.0 | 1.4 |
| Part-time | 3,322.8 | 3,329.1 | 6.3 | 11.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 |
| Unemployment | 1,370.6 | 1,378.6 | 8.0 | 3.0 | 0.6 | 0.2 |
| Participation rate | 66.8 | 66.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 7.3 | 7.3 | 0.0 | -0.1 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 61.9 | 61.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 19.0 | 19.0 | 0.0 | -0.2 | … | … |
| Youths, 15 to 24 years | ||||||
| Population | 4,457.2 | 4,457.3 | 0.1 | -0.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Labour force | 2,842.2 | 2,843.6 | 1.4 | -39.2 | 0.0 | -1.4 |
| Employment | 2,448.0 | 2,436.1 | -11.9 | -45.8 | -0.5 | -1.8 |
| Full-time | 1,291.7 | 1,280.3 | -11.4 | -20.6 | -0.9 | -1.6 |
| Part-time | 1,156.4 | 1,155.8 | -0.6 | -25.2 | -0.1 | -2.1 |
| Unemployment | 394.2 | 407.5 | 13.3 | 6.6 | 3.4 | 1.6 |
| Participation rate | 63.8 | 63.8 | 0.0 | -0.9 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 13.9 | 14.3 | 0.4 | 0.4 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 54.9 | 54.7 | -0.2 | -1.0 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 47.2 | 47.4 | 0.2 | -0.2 | … | … |
| Men, 25 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 11,639.1 | 11,653.9 | 14.8 | 161.3 | 0.1 | 1.4 |
| Labour force | 8,495.0 | 8,503.0 | 8.0 | 125.6 | 0.1 | 1.5 |
| Employment | 7,954.6 | 7,973.8 | 19.2 | 128.5 | 0.2 | 1.6 |
| Full-time | 7,343.1 | 7,364.3 | 21.2 | 137.7 | 0.3 | 1.9 |
| Part-time | 611.5 | 609.6 | -1.9 | -9.1 | -0.3 | -1.5 |
| Unemployment | 540.3 | 529.2 | -11.1 | -2.9 | -2.1 | -0.5 |
| Participation rate | 73.0 | 73.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 6.4 | 6.2 | -0.2 | -0.2 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 68.3 | 68.4 | 0.1 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 7.7 | 7.6 | -0.1 | -0.3 | … | … |
| Women, 25 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 12,145.7 | 12,160.4 | 14.7 | 162.2 | 0.1 | 1.4 |
| Labour force | 7,528.1 | 7,534.4 | 6.3 | 119.9 | 0.1 | 1.6 |
| Employment | 7,092.0 | 7,092.5 | 0.5 | 120.7 | 0.0 | 1.7 |
| Full-time | 5,537.1 | 5,528.7 | -8.4 | 75.1 | -0.2 | 1.4 |
| Part-time | 1,554.9 | 1,563.8 | 8.9 | 45.6 | 0.6 | 3.0 |
| Unemployment | 436.1 | 441.9 | 5.8 | -0.7 | 1.3 | -0.2 |
| Participation rate | 62.0 | 62.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 5.8 | 5.9 | 0.1 | -0.1 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 58.4 | 58.3 | -0.1 | 0.2 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 21.9 | 22.0 | 0.1 | 0.2 | … | … |
Thanks for the positive spin on things! Here on the east coast people are only talking about EI reforms and how it will affect the seasonal worker.
Adding more full-time jobs however is always a positive.