News
Canada labour market strong
Canada’s labour market has enjoyed its strongest start to a year since 2002, according to recent figures released by Statistics Canada, writes David Fuller
Since January roughly 158,000 people have found employment in the country, including almost 55,000 in March despite the fact economists had expected closer to just 10,000 jobs to be added to the economy during the month. As of the end of March over 16.5 million Canadian residents were employed in the country – 13.7 million of them in full-time positions – meaning that at 63.5 per cent of the whole population, Canada currently has its highest employment rate in 31 years. Moreover in Quebec, British Columbia and Manitoba employment rates are at all-time record levels – 60.8 per cent, 63.8 per cent and 66.3 per cent respectively.
The country's service sectors were responsible for all of March's employment growth, adding 66,000 jobs to easily offset the weakness of the goods-producing sector which cut close to 11,000 jobs. Trade jobs (27,000), and increased employment in the accommodation and food services (15,000) were responsible for fuelling the service sectors' substantial growth.
Women were the main beneficiaries of this new job creation, with over 39,000 females entering Canada's labour market in March. In fact, steady employment growth since the start of 2006 has led to a series of record employment rates for adult women, reaching a new high of 59 per cent in March.
What's more over the past 12 months, employment growth for adult women (at 3.8 per cent) has been more than double that of adult men (1.7 per cent). However, while more jobs than ever before continue to be created across the Atlantic, more Canadians than ever before – both immigrants and school leavers – are also looking for work, meaning that the country's national unemployment rate (for those of employment age, not the entire population) has remained unchanged since the beginning of the year, holding steady at 6.1 per cent.
It is in the west of the country where unemployment is particularly low. Alberta still boasts the lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 per cent, with the province's two biggest cities, Alberta and Edmonton, both enjoying jobless levels of less than 4 per cent. That said, the first sizable monthly decline in the goods-producing sector since March 2005 did see Alberta's unemployment rate rise by 0.1 per cent in March compared to the previous month.
To the west of Alberta, British Columbia recorded its lowest ever unemployment rate for the third consecutive month in March, with strong job creation in the manufacturing sector bringing the province's jobless rate to below 4 per cent for the first time in its history. BC's largest city, Vancouver, has particularly benefited from increased job creation over the past month, with the jobless rate there falling from 4.2 per cent to 3.6 per cent. However, it is the province's capital, Victoria, which currently has the lowest unemployment rate of any major Canadian city at 3.2 per cent.
The prairie province duo of Saskatchewan (3.8 per cent) and Manitoba (4.3 per cent) are the only other two provinces to have an unemployment rate at below the national level. Canada's four Atlantic provinces continue to record the highest levels of out-of-work Canadians, with Newfoundland and Labrador (14.3 per cent) and Prince Edward Island (10.3 per cent) the only areas to have double digit jobless rates.
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28 June 2007