Employment Numbers: A Festivus Miracle!
Stats Canada put out their numbers for November on Friday and they were much rosier than expected and better than our friends down south as well.
Employment rose by 79,000 in November, bringing the unemployment rate down 0.1 percentage points to 8.5%. Despite November’s gain, employment was 321,000 (-1.9%) below the peak of October 2008.
Hey let’s not get over the top here, more people employed is a good thing!
November Numbers Better
The numbers are quite interesting to browse (if you click on the graph you’ll go to the Stats Can original info), but the one thing I liked seeing was:
Most of the gain in overall employment in November was among women aged 25 to 54 (+51,000) and men aged 55 and over (+17,000).
Hooray for us old guys!!! You young ladies keep plunking away too!
Unemployment Down
This month the number crunchers got the unemployment numbers to go down (which is not always the case even when employment numbers are UP).
November Unemployment Down
Down only 0.1 percent, but it’s a good thing considering our friends to the south are celebrating their increase is not quite as big!
A Big Table
Here we are by sector, an interesting hunk of info. The area to look at is Finance, insurance, real estate and leasing, which means the financial sector is rebounding nicely… is that a good thing is the question?
| October 2009 | November 2009 | Oct to Nov 2009 | Nov 2008 to Nov 2009 | Oct to Nov 2009 | Nov 2008 to Nov 2009 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seasonally adjusted | ||||||
| thousands | change in thousands | % change | ||||
| Class of worker | ||||||
| Employees | 14,039.8 | 14,150.9 | 111.1 | -324.8 | 0.8 | -2.2 |
| Self-employed | 2,755.0 | 2,723.0 | -32.0 | 67.3 | -1.2 | 2.5 |
| Public/private sector employees | ||||||
| Public | 3,407.4 | 3,461.7 | 54.3 | 35.4 | 1.6 | 1.0 |
| Private | 10,632.3 | 10,689.2 | 56.9 | -360.3 | 0.5 | -3.3 |
| All industries | 16,794.8 | 16,873.9 | 79.1 | -257.5 | 0.5 | -1.5 |
| Goods-producing sector | 3,708.3 | 3,714.5 | 6.2 | -295.5 | 0.2 | -7.4 |
| Agriculture | 321.9 | 317.8 | -4.1 | 0.3 | -1.3 | 0.1 |
| Natural resources | 301.7 | 307.5 | 5.8 | -37.4 | 1.9 | -10.8 |
| Utilities | 149.9 | 148.9 | -1.0 | -1.5 | -0.7 | -1.0 |
| Construction | 1,178.0 | 1,170.8 | -7.2 | -85.0 | -0.6 | -6.8 |
| Manufacturing | 1,756.8 | 1,769.4 | 12.6 | -171.9 | 0.7 | -8.9 |
| Services-producing sector | 13,086.4 | 13,159.4 | 73.0 | 38.0 | 0.6 | 0.3 |
| Trade | 2,632.1 | 2,632.1 | 0.0 | -38.4 | 0.0 | -1.4 |
| Transportation and warehousing | 819.9 | 818.3 | -1.6 | -26.6 | -0.2 | -3.1 |
| Finance, insurance, real estate and leasing | 1,118.0 | 1,130.2 | 12.2 | 56.9 | 1.1 | 5.3 |
| Professional, scientific and technical services | 1,196.9 | 1,206.9 | 10.0 | -11.6 | 0.8 | -1.0 |
| Business, building and other support services | 639.0 | 641.3 | 2.3 | -22.8 | 0.4 | -3.4 |
| Educational services | 1,196.5 | 1,234.4 | 37.9 | 40.7 | 3.2 | 3.4 |
| Health care and social assistance | 1,955.1 | 1,959.2 | 4.1 | 20.9 | 0.2 | 1.1 |
| Information, culture and recreation | 785.1 | 781.8 | -3.3 | 25.3 | -0.4 | 3.3 |
| Accommodation and food services | 1,034.5 | 1,040.8 | 6.3 | -32.4 | 0.6 | -3.0 |
| Other services | 785.5 | 779.5 | -6.0 | 16.9 | -0.8 | 2.2 |
| Public administration | 923.8 | 935.1 | 11.3 | 9.2 | 1.2 | 1.0 |
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December 7th, 2009 at 6:58 AM
Unemployment is such a hard thing to talk about..
I’m sure companies are still in debt up to their necks.. only after companies can repair the balance sheet will they be in a strength position to hire.
That’s going to take a while. IMO
December 11th, 2009 at 2:14 AM
[...] the world of Financial Blogging. In a week where we saw that Interest Rates did not budge, and some encouraging news about jobs last week, maybe it is time to stop being so pessimistic? Nah, that’s not my [...]