Jobs & Money Detail
Canada's green shoots
It is fair to say that the whole world is in the same boat when it comes to the global economic slowdown: Every country has been rocked by the recession in some way or another.
But not all countries are being equally affected, and many financial experts predict that some countries will recover quicker than others. Thankfully, Canada looks set to be one of them, and although it isn't quite out of the woods yet, green shoots are already poking through the gloom.
In March, the unemployment rate for full-time work fell by 61,000, which pushed up the unemployment rate by 0.3 per cent to 8.0 per cent, the highest rate the country has seen for the last seven years.
However, despite discouraging statistics, in the last few weeks the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, has been talking of Canada coming out of the recession faster than feared and even stronger than before. He commented that Canada was one of the last countries to enter the recession, so therefore it was in good stead to "catch the first wave" of recovery once the worst is over.
It seems that Harper's reassurance that Canada's labour market will stabilise quickly is not blind faith, as recently released industry and provincial statistics reveal. Sectors such as building, education, technical services and utilities have all actually seen a rise in the numbers of employed workers. For example, the numbers of workers employed in the 'business, building and other support' sector increased by 2.0 per cent between February and March this year, showing that in the short term certain sectors are actually beginning to show improvement.
That's not all, either, as provincial statistics show certain parts of Canada may be weathering the storm better than others. An example is Newfoundland and Labrador, where the employment rate for the period February to March 2009 has increased by 0.9 per cent; Prince Edward Island also fared better than average - there was an increase of 0.1 per cent for the same period. Even provinces such as Ontario have had increases in the number of part-time workers: 2.0 per cent in the period from February to March 2009. Saskatchewan still leads the way in terms of provincial employment levels, with an impressive - and very stable - unemployment rate of 4.7 per cent.
Canada, we salute you! Gordon Brown, we don't!