Unemployment Creeps Up for November 2014

Stats Canada came out with their Labour Force Survey on Friday, and had a lump of coal for the festive season with a reported increase in Unemployment from 6.5% to 6.6% (in November (in Canada)).

The year over year employment story is much better (but don’t ever mistake employment news and unemployment news, as they are measured quite differently).

Compared with November 2013, employment increased by 146,000 (+0.8%), with part-time and full-time work up 1.9% and 0.6% respectively. Over the same period, the total number of hours worked was little changed (+0.1%).

Don’t let that rosy sounding news fool you though, there are more folks unemployed, and in the following graph you can see the employment “dip” (as it were).

For older folk such as myself the employment picture is less happy, with less jobs for men aged 55 and over, as well less jobs overall in Retail and Scientific and Technical services (all in all not good news for old geeks like me).

The unemployment saw tooth graph continues on with many ups and downs (but an overall downward trend).

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate while a little higher is still much better than it was last year at this time. In Ontario overall there were 34,000 less jobs last month.

Employment by Class of Worker

As usual I include one of the larger data tables, for your perusal and enjoyment.

Employment by class of worker and industry (based on NAICS¹) – Seasonally adjusted

	Oct 2014	Nov 2014	Std err2	Oct to Nov 2014	Nov 2013 to Nov 2014	Oct to Nov 2014	Nov 2013 to Nov 2014
	thousands			change in thousands		% change
Class of worker
Employees	15,243.2	15,220.2	35.7	-23.0	107.0	-0.2	0.7
Self-employed	2,725.4	2,737.7	25.5	12.3	39.1	0.5	1.4
Public/private sector employees
Public	3,628.2	3,650.8	25.0	22.6	45.2	0.6	1.3
Private	11,615.0	11,569.4	37.9	-45.6	61.8	-0.4	0.5
All industries	17,968.6	17,957.9	28.9	-10.7	146.0	-0.1	0.8
Goods-producing sector	3,915.5	3,932.8	26.3	17.3	30.8	0.4	0.8
Agriculture	297.1	305.1	7.5	8.0	-2.7	2.7	-0.9
Natural resources3	357.7	372.5	7.4	14.8	-10.5	4.1	-2.7
Utilities	152.1	152.6	5.4	0.5	-2.8	0.3	-1.8
Construction	1,355.8	1,350.5	17.7	-5.3	37.3	-0.4	2.8
Manufacturing	1,752.7	1,752.3	19.6	-0.4	9.7	0.0	0.6
Services-producing sector	14,053.1	14,025.1	34.4	-28.0	115.3	-0.2	0.8
Trade	2,738.9	2,697.3	24.5	-41.6	-2.5	-1.5	-0.1
Transportation and warehousing	886.7	872.4	14.2	-14.3	0.8	-1.6	0.1
Finance, insurance, real estate and leasing	1,144.3	1,155.6	16.8	11.3	23.0	1.0	2.0
Professional, scientific and technical services	1,380.1	1,347.2	18.6	-32.9	-11.7	-2.4	-0.9
Business, building and other support services	704.3	713.4	14.4	9.1	-14.5	1.3	-2.0
Educational services	1,308.6	1,314.5	16.2	5.9	18.7	0.5	1.4
Health care and social assistance	2,236.9	2,248.4	19.5	11.5	63.2	0.5	2.9
Information, culture and recreation	776.7	780.1	14.8	3.4	-21.6	0.4	-2.7
Accommodation and food services	1,190.4	1,203.5	17.2	13.1	58.3	1.1	5.1
Other services	749.6	754.7	13.8	5.1	-17.7	0.7	-2.3
Public administration	936.7	937.9	13.0	1.2	19.2	0.1	2.1

1. North American Industry Classification System.
2. Average standard error for change in two consecutive months. See “Sampling variability of estimates” in the section “About the Labour Force Survey” at the end of the publication Labour Force Information(Catalogue number71-001-X) for further explanations.
3. Also referred to as forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, oil and gas.

Note(s):

The sum of individual categories may not always add up to the total as a result of rounding.

Source(s):

CANSIM tables 282-0088 and 282-0089.