Less Employed in October 8.6% Unemployed
Friday we found out that the growth in employment we had been seeing in the past two months was short lived and there are now 43000 less folks working than the previous month (not a heartening thought for those still looking for jobs). This seems to suggest that the optimism over the economy may have been a tad premature, given there are 43000 less jobs, and there are in fact more folks looking for jobs as well (less jobs and more lookers, is not a good thing).
Compared with the peak of October 2008, employment is down 400,000 (-2.3%), with the bulk of the decline (-357,000) occurring during the first five months of the labour market downturn.
This is just not a good statistic no matter how you look at it. This means there are more folks still looking for jobs and not finding them (again I count myself as very lucky in finding the job I did, when I did, as I do know of folks who are still looking).
Where were these losses?
Declines in the number of private (-45,000) and public (-26,000) sector employees in October were partially offset by gains in self-employment (+28,000).
Since October 2008, the number of employees in the private sector has fallen by 4.1%, a faster rate of decline than in the public sector (-1.6%). Self-employment, meanwhile, has increased by 3.9%.
Wow, more “self employed” but what does that mean? Are these people contracting, or are they finding something part time?
The Big Picture
Here is the big table, check it out:
| Sept 2009 | Oct 2009 | Sept to Oct 2009 | Oct 2008 to Oct 2009 |
Sept to Oct 2009 | Oct 2008 to Oct 2009 |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seasonally adjusted | ||||||
| thousands | change in thousands | % change | ||||
| Both sexes, 15 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 27,401.5 | 27,433.1 | 31.6 | 389.0 | 0.1 | 1.4 |
| Labour force | 18,387.8 | 18,382.2 | -5.6 | 35.9 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Employment | 16,838.0 | 16,794.8 | -43.2 | -399.9 | -0.3 | -2.3 |
| Full-time | 13,609.6 | 13,626.1 | 16.5 | -378.1 | 0.1 | -2.7 |
| Part-time | 3,228.4 | 3,168.7 | -59.7 | -21.8 | -1.8 | -0.7 |
| Unemployment | 1,549.7 | 1,587.4 | 37.7 | 435.9 | 2.4 | 37.9 |
| Participation rate | 67.1 | 67.0 | -0.1 | -0.8 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 8.4 | 8.6 | 0.2 | 2.3 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 61.4 | 61.2 | -0.2 | -2.4 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 19.2 | 18.9 | -0.3 | 0.3 | … | … |
| Youths, 15 to 24 years |
||||||
| Population | 4,398.4 | 4,399.1 | 0.7 | 17.2 | 0.0 | 0.4 |
| Labour force | 2,821.8 | 2,813.2 | -8.6 | -147.4 | -0.3 | -5.0 |
| Employment | 2,395.2 | 2,375.3 | -19.9 | -225.2 | -0.8 | -8.7 |
| Full-time | 1,271.1 | 1,283.5 | 12.4 | -154.8 | 1.0 | -10.8 |
| Part-time | 1,124.1 | 1,091.8 | -32.3 | -70.5 | -2.9 | -6.1 |
| Unemployment | 426.6 | 437.8 | 11.2 | 77.8 | 2.6 | 21.6 |
| Participation rate | 64.2 | 63.9 | -0.3 | -3.7 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 15.1 | 15.6 | 0.5 | 3.4 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 54.5 | 54.0 | -0.5 | -5.3 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 46.9 | 46.0 | -0.9 | 1.3 | … | … |
| Men, 25 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 11,249.6 | 11,265.9 | 16.3 | 189.3 | 0.1 | 1.7 |
| Labour force | 8,244.1 | 8,247.3 | 3.2 | 52.3 | 0.0 | 0.6 |
| Employment | 7,561.9 | 7,563.0 | 1.1 | -177.1 | 0.0 | -2.3 |
| Full-time | 6,967.7 | 6,981.3 | 13.6 | -191.2 | 0.2 | -2.7 |
| Part-time | 594.2 | 581.7 | -12.5 | 14.0 | -2.1 | 2.5 |
| Unemployment | 682.2 | 684.3 | 2.1 | 229.4 | 0.3 | 50.4 |
| Participation rate | 73.3 | 73.2 | -0.1 | -0.8 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 8.3 | 8.3 | 0.0 | 2.7 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 67.2 | 67.1 | -0.1 | -2.8 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 7.9 | 7.7 | -0.2 | 0.4 | … | … |
| Women, 25 years and over |
||||||
| Population | 11,753.5 | 11,768.1 | 14.6 | 182.5 | 0.1 | 1.6 |
| Labour force | 7,321.8 | 7,321.8 | 0.0 | 131.1 | 0.0 | 1.8 |
| Employment | 6,880.9 | 6,856.5 | -24.4 | 2.4 | -0.4 | 0.0 |
| Full-time | 5,370.8 | 5,361.3 | -9.5 | -32.2 | -0.2 | -0.6 |
| Part-time | 1,510.1 | 1,495.2 | -14.9 | 34.7 | -1.0 | 2.4 |
| Unemployment | 440.9 | 465.3 | 24.4 | 128.7 | 5.5 | 38.2 |
| Participation rate | 62.3 | 62.2 | -0.1 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 6.0 | 6.4 | 0.4 | 1.7 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 58.5 | 58.3 | -0.2 | -0.9 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 21.9 | 21.8 | -0.1 | 0.5 | … | … |
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