Moribund Job Growth in July 2014 in Canada

Nothing good, in Friday’s message from Stats Canada about jobs in Canada, but then again nothing horrendous, mostly stagnant in the world of job creation in Canada. The real news from Stats Canada is almost discouraging:

Overall employment was unchanged in July, as gains in part-time work were offset by losses in full-time. A decline in the number of people searching for work pushed the unemployment rate down 0.1 percentage points to 7.0%.

So we are back to the world where we lose Full Time jobs, and they are replaced by Part Time jobs? This is not a good thing long-term for the employees. Part-time employees cost less for most employers with less (or no) benefits and an ability to limit their hours as well. I am surprised the large Unions aren’t saying much about this topic. Hopefully it will be part of the next Federal Election discussions, as we have a younger generation of folks with multiple part-time jobs, is that model sustainable?

The fact that less folks are looking is even more discouraging. Why aren’t these folks looking any more?

The one positive thing mentioned is that there are more 15 to 24 year olds employed, and less over 55 year olds, but then again, the younger set is much more likely to be working part-time jobs.

As I have mentioned before much of this data depends highly on how it is interpreted (as I have mentioned in Damn Lies and Data) and Stats Canada admits that if they calculated unemployment the way the U.S. interprets it, our unemployment rate would be 6.0% (instead of 7.0% as they mentioned on Friday).

The Big Table

This month let’s explore employment by Industry, which is telling as well.

Employment by class of worker and industry (based on NAICS1) Seasonally adjusted