Friday our friends at Stats Canada published their monthly Labour Force Survey for the year ending in May 2014, and while there is more employment, it is due to more part-time jobs.
Whoever writes these reports must be under some tight editorial restrictions from the government, however, I do appreciate their skills at getting the point across with the following statement:
Employment edged up by 26,000 in May, driven by gains in part-time work. The unemployment rate increased 0.1 percentage points to 7.0% as there were more people in the labour market. Overall employment growth has been subdued since August 2013.
I do appreciate the word “subdued” being used in this report, it is telling us that we are not seeing the employment growth that we expected, and are not sure why growth is not move vigorous.
The sad part of the data is that because more folks are looking for jobs, the unemployment rate has gone up, and that is the joy of numbers and statistics, isn’t it?
Not a very happy graph to look at. Youth employment (15 to 24 years old) is up a fair amount, which is good, but aging older men (like me) aged 25-54 are losing employment and the group above us has more jobs, but that is mostly because there are more of them! Sad but true.
A Big Table
So this month’s big table we will look at employment by Industry, which may help see where the jobs actually are in Canada.
Employment by class of worker and industry (based on NAICS1) Seasonally adjusted
| April 2014 | May 2014 | Std error2 | April to May 2014 | May 2013 to May 2014 | April to May 2014 | May 2013 to May 2014 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| thousands | change in thousands | % change | |||||
| Class of worker | |||||||
| Employees | 15,082.5 | 15,148.7 | 35.7 | 66.2 | 119.2 | 0.4 | 0.8 |
| Self-employed | 2,721.8 | 2,681.4 | 25.5 | -40.4 | -33.7 | -1.5 | -1.2 |
| Public/private sector employees | |||||||
| Public | 3,608.2 | 3,649.7 | 25.0 | 41.5 | -9.6 | 1.2 | -0.3 |
| Private | 11,474.3 | 11,499.0 | 37.9 | 24.7 | 128.9 | 0.2 | 1.1 |
| All industries | 17,804.3 | 17,830.1 | 28.9 | 25.8 | 85.5 | 0.1 | 0.5 |
| Goods-producing sector | 3,864.8 | 3,855.3 | 26.3 | -9.5 | -33.6 | -0.2 | -0.9 |
| Agriculture | 294.4 | 313.7 | 7.5 | 19.3 | -6.8 | 6.6 | -2.1 |
| Natural resources3 | 380.4 | 357.2 | 7.4 | -23.2 | -4.7 | -6.1 | -1.3 |
| Utilities | 155.4 | 157.7 | 5.4 | 2.3 | 22.5 | 1.5 | 16.6 |
| Construction | 1,300.8 | 1,305.3 | 17.7 | 4.5 | -39.5 | 0.3 | -2.9 |
| Manufacturing | 1,733.7 | 1,721.5 | 19.6 | -12.2 | -5.1 | -0.7 | -0.3 |
| Services-producing sector | 13,939.6 | 13,974.7 | 34.4 | 35.1 | 119.0 | 0.3 | 0.9 |
| Trade | 2,706.6 | 2,723.1 | 24.5 | 16.5 | 12.9 | 0.6 | 0.5 |
| Transportation and warehousing | 900.5 | 905.5 | 14.2 | 5.0 | 47.0 | 0.6 | 5.5 |
| Finance, insurance, real estate and leasing | 1,110.0 | 1,089.0 | 16.8 | -21.0 | -32.9 | -1.9 | -2.9 |
| Professional, scientific and technical services | 1,363.8 | 1,360.7 | 18.6 | -3.1 | 27.9 | -0.2 | 2.1 |
| Business, building and other support services | 732.6 | 730.7 | 14.4 | -1.9 | 20.0 | -0.3 | 2.8 |
| Educational services | 1,274.1 | 1,295.6 | 16.2 | 21.5 | -5.9 | 1.7 | -0.5 |
| Health care and social assistance | 2,234.0 | 2,239.9 | 19.5 | 5.9 | 63.8 | 0.3 | 2.9 |
| Information, culture and recreation | 800.2 | 793.2 | 14.8 | -7.0 | 10.6 | -0.9 | 1.4 |
| Accommodation and food services | 1,115.1 | 1,134.6 | 17.2 | 19.5 | 0.8 | 1.7 | 0.1 |
| Other services | 775.6 | 766.9 | 13.8 | -8.7 | -1.9 | -1.1 | -0.2 |
| Public administration | 927.2 | 935.5 | 13.0 | 8.3 | -23.4 | 0.9 | -2.4 |
Jobs in 2014
What was the job market like in 2014?
- The Changing Landscape of Jobs in 2014: What to Expect?
- Unemployment Creeps Up for November 2014
- Unemployment is like it is 2008 Again
- Good Job Picture for September in Canada
- Moribund Job Growth in July in Canada
- Unemployment Ticks Up in Canada in June
- More (Part-time) Jobs in Canada in May 2014
- No Jobs, no jobs, no new jobs ?
- Young Folk Finding Jobs in Canada in March 2014
- Stagnant Job Picture in February
- Unemployment Down, but not that good news to start 2014
- Ugly Job Numbers to End 2013
