Another example of sometimes you need to understand what is being measured before you attempt to interpret the data coming from our friends at Stats Canada.
Employment increased by 36,000 in August. At the same time, the unemployment rate edged up 0.1 percentage points to 8.1%, as more people entered the labour force.
So more jobs, but also more folks looking for jobs, means we end up with both indexes going up, unfortunately. This seems to buck what the U.S. is going through, where they are not getting back their employment numbers, so Canada seems to be doing a little better than our American Cousins.
Now that we have that nice graph, here is the graph that makes your stomach kind of drop, when you see how unemployment has sky rocketed in a short period of time too.
With September coming and kids going back to school it should be interesting to see how these numbers change with this in mind.
The Big Table
Here is the big table of employment and such by age group. This interests me just because I am older now.
| July 2010 | August 2010 | July to August 2010 | August 2009 to August 2010 | July to August 2010 | August 2009 to August 2010 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seasonally adjusted | ||||||
| thousands | change in thousands | % change | ||||
| Both sexes, 15 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 27,735.2 | 27,779.5 | 44.3 | 421.1 | 0.2 | 1.5 |
| Labour force | 18,673.6 | 18,727.1 | 53.5 | 306.5 | 0.3 | 1.7 |
| Employment | 17,180.5 | 17,216.3 | 35.8 | 396.3 | 0.2 | 2.4 |
| Full-time | 13,745.6 | 13,825.5 | 79.9 | 294.0 | 0.6 | 2.2 |
| Part-time | 3,434.9 | 3,390.8 | -44.1 | 102.3 | -1.3 | 3.1 |
| Unemployment | 1,493.1 | 1,510.9 | 17.8 | -89.7 | 1.2 | -5.6 |
| Participation rate | 67.3 | 67.4 | 0.1 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 8.0 | 8.1 | 0.1 | -0.6 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 61.9 | 62.0 | 0.1 | 0.5 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 20.0 | 19.7 | -0.3 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Youths, 15 to 24 years | ||||||
| Population | 4,407.4 | 4,408.9 | 1.5 | 12.1 | 0.0 | 0.3 |
| Labour force | 2,846.2 | 2,862.5 | 16.3 | 2.1 | 0.6 | 0.1 |
| Employment | 2,445.5 | 2,443.5 | -2.0 | 48.5 | -0.1 | 2.0 |
| Full-time | 1,247.8 | 1,242.2 | -5.6 | 29.2 | -0.4 | 2.4 |
| Part-time | 1,197.7 | 1,201.3 | 3.6 | 19.3 | 0.3 | 1.6 |
| Unemployment | 400.7 | 419.0 | 18.3 | -46.4 | 4.6 | -10.0 |
| Participation rate | 64.6 | 64.9 | 0.3 | -0.2 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 14.1 | 14.6 | 0.5 | -1.7 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 55.5 | 55.4 | -0.1 | 0.9 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 49.0 | 49.2 | 0.2 | -0.2 | … | … |
| Men, 25 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 11,411.8 | 11,433.0 | 21.2 | 204.8 | 0.2 | 1.8 |
| Labour force | 8,392.5 | 8,420.1 | 27.6 | 152.8 | 0.3 | 1.8 |
| Employment | 7,776.8 | 7,794.8 | 18.0 | 209.6 | 0.2 | 2.8 |
| Full-time | 7,124.5 | 7,179.2 | 54.7 | 174.9 | 0.8 | 2.5 |
| Part-time | 652.3 | 615.7 | -36.6 | 34.8 | -5.6 | 6.0 |
| Unemployment | 615.6 | 625.3 | 9.7 | -56.8 | 1.6 | -8.3 |
| Participation rate | 73.5 | 73.6 | 0.1 | 0.0 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 7.3 | 7.4 | 0.1 | -0.9 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 68.1 | 68.2 | 0.1 | 0.6 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 8.4 | 7.9 | -0.5 | 0.2 | … | … |
| Women, 25 years and over | ||||||
| Population | 11,916.0 | 11,937.6 | 21.6 | 204.2 | 0.2 | 1.7 |
| Labour force | 7,434.9 | 7,444.5 | 9.6 | 151.7 | 0.1 | 2.1 |
| Employment | 6,958.1 | 6,977.9 | 19.8 | 138.1 | 0.3 | 2.0 |
| Full-time | 5,373.3 | 5,404.1 | 30.8 | 90.0 | 0.6 | 1.7 |
| Part-time | 1,584.9 | 1,573.8 | -11.1 | 48.1 | -0.7 | 3.2 |
| Unemployment | 476.8 | 466.6 | -10.2 | 13.6 | -2.1 | 3.0 |
| Participation rate | 62.4 | 62.4 | 0.0 | 0.2 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 6.4 | 6.3 | -0.1 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 58.4 | 58.5 | 0.1 | 0.2 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 22.8 | 22.6 | -0.2 | 0.3 | … | … |
oy! my stomach indeed dropped looking at that graph. And thanks for the stats re: age group and gender and jobs – my day job is HR for the GNWT so I’m really interested in those kinds of trends.