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Dismal job numbers for June
Statistics Canada’s release of job numbers for June look truly dismal. The unemployment rate rose to 7.1%, and there was a loss of 9,400 jobs compared to May. Â Year over year, employment rose by only...
View ArticleMore People Chase Fewer Jobs
Further to Angella’s excellent analysis: Statistics Canada reported today that unemployment jumped by 25,700 in June because of shrinking employment and a growing labour force. Canada’s labour...
View ArticleEI Falls as Unemployment Rises
Statistics Canada reported today that the number of people receiving Employment Insurance (EI) benefits fell by 12,070 in May – the largest drop in nearly two years. (The last time Statistics Canada...
View ArticleRevised LFS Numbers Don’t Change the Big Picture
What a rough week it’s been over at Statistics Canada. It’s a world-renowned statistical agency — though its lustre has been tarnished in recent years by budget cuts, cancelled data programs and...
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Is Canada becoming a ‘part-time’ nation – the value of LMI
Most of the jobs added to the Canadian labour market in 2014 were part-time – prompting headlines such as “Experts fret Canada becoming a nation of part-time workers“. Are we really a part-time nation?...
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Indigenous Workers in Canada
Labour market data in Canada is easily available by sex, age, and region. We spend a great deal of time talking about these factors. More recently Statistics Canada made labour market data available on...
View ArticleSelf-Employment Masks Job Loss
Statistics Canada reported today that employers cut the number of employees by 98,000 in August, which was largely masked by 87,000 more Canadians identifying themselves as self-employed. As a result,...
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Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Job Numbers
Today Statistics Canada released their first set of job numbers since the ‘oops’ of July 2014. And the news was dismal. The labour market shed 112,000 private sector positions, the largest single month...
View ArticleShould Welfare Recipients Try Harder to Find Work?
This morning the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation released a new report about “motivational interviewing” for welfare recipients. The link to the full report is here, and the link to the...
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Of Rising Tides and Sinking Boats
Recently, Minister Kenney took to twitter to defend his decision to limit the number of precarious workers entering Alberta through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Again, the minister is to be...
View ArticleLiberal’s EI Plan Rests on Bad Math
Joe Oliver recently announced a Small Business Tax Cut, sorry, Job Credit. Economists across the ideological spectrum denounced it as poorly designed. This opened up an interesting opportunity for a...
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Labour market musings
Just a short post ahead of the job numbers that come out from Statistics Canada tomorrow. Five years after the end of the last recession, and Canada’s labour market is still limping along. And it seems...
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Job Numbers Surprise
For the first time in a while, Statistics Canada gives us some good news on the job front. 74,000 net new jobs added in September, certainly nothing to sneeze at. Still, we would need to keep this pace...
View ArticleBank of Canada, Exports, and LMI
Much has been made about Stephen Poloz’s decision to abandon ‘forward guidance’ in Bank of Canada rate setting announcements for the time being. Critics bemoan the loss of direction from the Bank. But...
View ArticleLow Oil Prices, Good or Bad for Canada?
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere, you’re probably well aware that the price of oil has fallen dramatically, to less than $50 / barrel. What this means for Canada’s economic output &...
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Banks and Balanced Budgets
The Bank of Canada surprised most analysts this week when it decided to cut rates by 25 basis points. The move comes after the price of oil has tumbled below $50 / barrel, oil producers announced huge...
View ArticleRochon Asks: “Is the Canadian economy unraveling?”
In a recent CBC blog post, Louis-Philippe Rochon assesses the current state of the Canadian economy. The link to the blog post is here. Follow him on Twitter @Lprochon.
View ArticleROCHON: Harper in closet over the economy as Canada heads toward another...
This guest blog post has been written by Louis-Philippe Rochon. You can follow him on Twitter @Lprochon – Harper’s recent incarnation as an anti-terrorist crusader has caught many Canadians by...
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January Job Gain Part-time, Self-employment
As usual, the monthly Labour Force Survey numbers headline seems to tell a different story than the underlying numbers. According to the LFS, Canada added 35,000 jobs in January. A statistically...
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Why are women leaving Canada’s workforce?
I started producing an e-weekly earlier this year, Eye on the Economy: making sense of recent economic events, as a more regularly complement to the quarterly Economy at Work I also produce. Each issue...
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