Canadian Personal Finance Blog

Archive for the ‘Employment Insurance’ Category

Friday, Stats Canada published their monthly update on the Labor Force Survey for January and the numbers were a little better than the prognosticators were guessing, as employment increased by 43,000 jobs last month (the number bandied about I had heard was 15,000), which actually pushed the unemployment rate down 1/10% as well.

This is relatively good news, given the gloom and doom from the stock markets and the commodities world of the past few days (at the end of last week).

Employment gains in January were driven by women aged 25 to 54 and youths. This was the first notable increase for youths since the start of the employment downturn in the fall of 2008.

So more part time jobs, but at least work is out there, for the youths.

Employment Curve up to January 2010

Unemployment dropped a little, which should make folks happier, but it is still well over 8% which is a number that does not reflect a healthy thriving economy.

Unemployment Graph up to January 2010

Much of the gains were seen in Ontario (30,000), but Ontario’s unemployment rate stayed at 9.2% as more folks were also looking for jobs, which means unemployment is actually on an upward trend since the summer.

The Big Table

Here is the Big table from Stats Can, find your age group and see what happened to folks of your age and gender.

Nothing New on Jobs Front

Stats Canada published their Labor Force survery for December 2009 on Friday, and it seemed to suggest not much changed in December after a surge in November. This is to be expected with most firms slowing down for the holidays, so the data really only reflect a 2/3 of a month snapshot (if someone got hired between Christmas and New Years I would be very surprised (but it would be a nice present too)).

In the last nine months, employment has stabilized but remains 323,000 (-1.9%) below the October 2008 peak.

Very interesting statement, but given we are only “recovering” not attempting to get back to record highs, it is a slow and steady slope.

At least the graph does not show a slope down.

Unemployment Flat Too

The good thing is that this month’s data also shows that unemployment is stable as well, although seeing it drop would be another good sign of the “recovery” gaining momentum.

Following a large increase in November, employment was unchanged in December and the unemployment rate remained at 8.5%.

Another Big Table

This is the big table of Labour Force Characteristics by Age and Sex

Given we start a new year, all we folks who receive pay cheques (I believe the Japanese term is Salary-man), we get to start paying CPP and EI premiums again. For a lot of folks, they are just deductions that appear on every pay stub, but for folks who make over a certain amount, this deduction appears some time in the year, and after that, they get a “virtual raise” given they do not have to pay these deductions for the rest of the year.

Michael James is a lover of numbers (but not a numerologist luckily) and pointed out one day how easy it is to approximate how much someone makes, by when they stop paying EI premiums (and you’d be surprised how many people talk openly about the fact that they have stopped paying the premium (in fact I had just told Michael James that very fact)).

It’s actually a pretty simple game to play and well worth a couple of minutes time to create a little model to figure this thing out.

Meet Jack

Jack gets paid bi-weekly, and works as an employee of XYYZZ. He gets paid a regular salary (assume no bonuses and such), so if we list the month in which Jack tells us “I stopped paying EI premiums this month” we can then approximate how much Jack actually makes in salary. We know from the EI web site that your premium is 1.73% of your insurable earnings (and the maximum insurable earnings is $42,300 in 2010).

Just remember what you tell folks can sometimes have more meaning than you might think.

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?

After a very long weekend of Turkey and Family we return (and after my favorite WKRP segment) to see employment numbers improving in Canada.

Employment increased for the second consecutive month, up 31,000 in September, driven by large full-time gains. The unemployment rate fell by 0.3 percentage points to 8.4%, the first monthly decline since the beginning of the labour market downturn in the fall of 2008.

So the Employment numbers are better (and the increase is in the area of Full Time employment which is a good thing) and unemployment is down, and well below what is being seen in the U.S. as well.

September shows an Up Tick

Unemployment Down

Down a bit for September which is a good thing

A drop from August to September is a good thing to see, however, year over year unemployment is still up 2.2% over last year at this time (now at 8.4%).

No real huge signs of massive rehirings going on in the Ottawa area, still more discussions of how budgets will be spent and whether High Tech start up companies can pick up the slack  from other High Tech Dinosaurs in the area.

For those still looking for work these numbers are encouraging, but certainly not anything to think that “Happy Days are Here Again”, either.