Jobs? in Canada in December?

The story of jobs from November to December in 2014 was an odd mix, where there are a few less jobs, but there are more full-time folks, so a mixed bag of news. The real number is 4300 less jobs from November to December, but, if you look at the year-over-year numbers, there are 186,000 more jobs than last year at this time (and a lot of that growth is in the second half of 2014), so good news there.

The graph for employment reflects the “meh..” aspect to the numbers from last month:

As usual, the enigmatic unemployment rate remained unchanged, but what does that mean?

We created 54,000 full-time jobs and lost 58,000 part-time jobs? Two edged sword, bad to lose jobs, good that we have more full-time jobs. Not good news for women over 25, let’s hope that gets remedied soon too.

Labour force characteristics by age and sex Seasonally adjusted

I have edited the table a little for readability on this site, you want the full picture, check it out on the Stats Canada web site.

	November 2014	December 2014	Std err1	Nov to Dec 2014	Dec 2013 to Dec 2014
	thousands (except rates)			change in thousands (except rates)
Both sexes, 15 years and over
Population	29,165.9	29,190.0	…	24.1	346.3
Labour force	19,236.6	19,225.4	29.1	-11.2	74.0
Employment	17,957.9	17,953.6	28.9	-4.3	185.7
Full-time	14,511.0	14,564.5	39.2	53.5	190.3
Part-time	3,446.9	3,389.2	36.1	-57.7	-4.5
Unemployment	1,278.6	1,271.8	24.9	-6.8	-111.7
Participation rate	66.0	65.9	0.1	-0.1	-0.5
Unemployment rate	6.6	6.6	0.1	0.0	-0.6
Employment rate	61.6	61.5	0.1	-0.1	-0.1
Part-time rate	19.2	18.9	0.2	-0.3	-0.2
Youths, 15 to 24 years
Population	4,403.2	4,399.9	…	-3.3	-40.0
Labour force	2,860.2	2,866.7	17.2	6.5	50.6
Employment	2,487.7	2,484.4	15.8	-3.3	62.5
Full-time	1,258.2	1,293.0	18.6	34.8	43.6
Part-time	1,229.5	1,191.5	19.7	-38.0	19.0
Unemployment	372.6	382.3	14.6	9.7	-12.0
Participation rate	65.0	65.2	0.4	0.2	1.8
Unemployment rate	13.0	13.3	0.5	0.3	-0.7
Employment rate	56.5	56.5	0.4	0.0	2.0
Part-time rate	49.4	48.0	0.7	-1.5	-0.5
Men, 25 years and over
Population	12,132.3	12,145.8	…	13.5	194.6
Labour force	8,688.8	8,702.6	15.1	13.8	64.4
Employment	8,182.9	8,209.7	16.4	26.8	127.4
Full-time	7,541.9	7,560.0	22.0	18.1	118.9
Part-time	641.0	649.8	18.0	8.8	8.6
Unemployment	506.0	492.9	14.5	-13.1	-62.9
Participation rate	71.6	71.7	0.1	0.1	-0.6
Unemployment rate	5.8	5.7	0.2	-0.1	-0.7
Employment rate	67.4	67.6	0.1	0.2	0.0
Part-time rate	7.8	7.9	0.2	0.1	0.0
Women, 25 years and over
Population	12,630.4	12,644.4	…	14.0	191.8
Labour force	7,687.5	7,656.1	16.6	-31.4	-41.0
Employment	7,287.4	7,259.5	16.4	-27.9	-4.3
Full-time	5,711.0	5,711.6	25.7	0.6	27.9
Part-time	1,576.5	1,547.9	24.0	-28.6	-32.2
Unemployment	400.1	396.6	13.3	-3.5	-36.7
Participation rate	60.9	60.5	0.1	-0.4	-1.3
Unemployment rate	5.2	5.2	0.2	0.0	-0.4
Employment rate	57.7	57.4	0.1	-0.3	-0.9
Part-time rate	21.6	21.3	0.3	-0.3	-0.4

1. 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.

Note(s):

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

Source(s):

CANSIM table 282-0087.