Friday before the Long Weekend our friends at Stats Canada published some relatively good news for the Canadian Economy, with 74000 more folks employed in September (2014). Coincidently the unemployment rate dropped 2/10 of a percent as well, so all in all a rosier picture, with unemployment the lowest it has been since December 2008 (nearly the beginning of the economic collapse).
The graph seems to look more optimistic. The areas where employment increased the most was youths aged 15 to 24 and women aged 25 to 54. More youth employment is a very good thing for the economy, as this is the area where employment has lagged badly since the great collapse.
The sectors where there were increases in employment were in accommodation and food services; health care and social assistance; construction; natural resources; also in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing. There was some bad employment news was numbers were down in educational services.
For me, an excellent piece of news is that the number of private sector employees increased in September, which means the economy is creating jobs (not just the government).
Adjusted to the concepts used in the United States, the unemployment rate in Canada was 5.9% in September, the same as the US rate.
It’s good to see we are keeping up with our American cousins in terms of job creation.
The Big Table
As usual I include some data from the Big Data tables from Stats Canada so you can see the data yourself and make your conclusions:
Employment by class of worker and industry (based on NAICS1) – Seasonally adjusted
| August 2014 | September 2014 | Std error2 | August to Sept 2014 |
Sept 2013 to Sept 2014 |
August to Sept 2014 |
Sept 2013 to Sept 2014 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| thousands | change in thousands | % change | |||||
| Class of worker | |||||||
| Employees | 15,096.8 | 15,226.4 | 35.6 | 129.6 | 150.2 | 0.9 | 1.0 |
| Self-employed | 2,754.7 | 2,699.1 | 25.9 | -55.6 | 0.2 | -2.0 | 0.0 |
| Public/private sector employees | |||||||
| Public | 3,676.0 | 3,682.0 | 25.0 | 6.0 | 88.1 | 0.2 | 2.5 |
| Private | 11,420.8 | 11,544.4 | 38.2 | 123.6 | 62.0 | 1.1 | 0.5 |
| All industries | 17,851.4 | 17,925.5 | 28.5 | 74.1 | 150.4 | 0.4 | 0.8 |
| Goods-producing sector | 3,835.9 | 3,896.1 | 26.0 | 60.2 | -12.8 | 1.6 | -0.3 |
| Agriculture | 298.4 | 295.2 | 7.8 | -3.2 | -19.3 | -1.1 | -6.1 |
| Natural resources3 | 352.2 | 379.9 | 7.9 | 27.7 | -1.1 | 7.9 | -0.3 |
| Utilities | 150.2 | 148.9 | 5.3 | -1.3 | -2.9 | -0.9 | -1.9 |
| Construction | 1,322.7 | 1,352.6 | 17.6 | 29.9 | 13.3 | 2.3 | 1.0 |
| Manufacturing | 1,712.4 | 1,719.5 | 18.9 | 7.1 | -2.9 | 0.4 | -0.2 |
| Services-producing sector | 14,015.6 | 14,029.4 | 34.4 | 13.8 | 163.2 | 0.1 | 1.2 |
| Trade | 2,713.3 | 2,700.4 | 24.3 | -12.9 | -20.9 | -0.5 | -0.8 |
| Transportation and warehousing | 887.4 | 878.6 | 14.6 | -8.8 | 18.9 | -1.0 | 2.2 |
| Finance, insurance, real estate and leasing | 1,087.7 | 1,108.6 | 16.7 | 20.9 | -31.1 | 1.9 | -2.7 |
| Professional, scientific and technical services | 1,391.2 | 1,376.2 | 18.7 | -15.0 | 25.8 | -1.1 | 1.9 |
| Business, building and other support services | 693.6 | 694.7 | 14.2 | 1.1 | -33.5 | 0.2 | -4.6 |
| Educational services | 1,331.1 | 1,286.9 | 16.2 | -44.2 | 10.6 | -3.3 | 0.8 |
| Health care and social assistance | 2,216.8 | 2,248.5 | 19.4 | 31.7 | 69.3 | 1.4 | 3.2 |
| Information, culture and recreation | 796.6 | 788.9 | 14.8 | -7.7 | -0.8 | -1.0 | -0.1 |
| Accommodation and food services | 1,149.3 | 1,196.9 | 17.1 | 47.6 | 64.2 | 4.1 | 5.7 |
| Other services | 770.3 | 775.6 | 13.5 | 5.3 | -0.1 | 0.7 | 0.0 |
| Public administration | 978.5 | 974.2 | 12.4 | -4.3 | 60.9 | -0.4 | 6.7 |
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
