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Canajun Finances Home » Employment for May About the Same?

Employment for May About the Same?

Our friends at Stats Canada published the Labour Force Survey for May 2012, which shows not much change in terms of Employment or Unemployment, so I guess the Canadian Economy took a break to catch its breath (to sound optimistic)?

Following two months of large gains, employment was unchanged in May, and the unemployment rate remained at 7.3%.

Compared with 12 months earlier, employment increased 1.2% or 203,000. Virtually all of this growth was in full-time work, up 192,000 (+1.4%). The total number of hours worked rose 1.3% over the same period.

So the good news is the growth continues to be in full-time jobs, which is really good (full-time working folks pay taxes, and hopefully have benefits packages too). So even though we didn’t do much last month, year over year, we added 203,000 jobs, so that is a good thing.

Employment Canada
Employment in Canada For Last Little While

It’s hard to be gloomy with a nice graph like that (all sloping up and such, it’s like a crooked smile).

For those who want to see the glass half-empty point of view (i.e. unemployment), here is that graph:

Unemployment
Unemployment in Canada the Past Little While

Not really as optimistic looking, not dropping that fast, but still better than nothing. Remember that Unemployment and Employment are not as closely correlated as you might think (check out the Stats Canada site for that explanation, I don’t agree with it, but it’s their data, so I don’t get to complain (too much) about it either).

A Big Table

Yes, I love those big tables from Stats Canada, since the data says a great deal about all of the data. My favorite table from this data set is the employment by age, which I now include for your perusal.

Labour force characteristics by age and sex – Seasonally adjusted

April 2012 May 2012 April to May 2012 May 2011 to May 2012 April to May 2012 May 2011 to May 2012
thousands (except rates) change in thousands (except rates) % change
Both sexes, 15 years and over
Population 28,242.0 28,271.6 29.6 322.6 0.1 1.2
Labour force 18,865.3 18,881.0 15.7 206.4 0.1 1.1
Employment 17,494.7 17,502.4 7.7 203.4 0.0 1.2
Full-time 14,171.9 14,173.3 1.4 192.2 0.0 1.4
Part-time 3,322.8 3,329.1 6.3 11.2 0.2 0.3
Unemployment 1,370.6 1,378.6 8.0 3.0 0.6 0.2
Participation rate 66.8 66.8 0.0 0.0
Unemployment rate 7.3 7.3 0.0 -0.1
Employment rate 61.9 61.9 0.0 0.0
Part-time rate 19.0 19.0 0.0 -0.2
Youths, 15 to 24 years
Population 4,457.2 4,457.3 0.1 -0.8 0.0 0.0
Labour force 2,842.2 2,843.6 1.4 -39.2 0.0 -1.4
Employment 2,448.0 2,436.1 -11.9 -45.8 -0.5 -1.8
Full-time 1,291.7 1,280.3 -11.4 -20.6 -0.9 -1.6
Part-time 1,156.4 1,155.8 -0.6 -25.2 -0.1 -2.1
Unemployment 394.2 407.5 13.3 6.6 3.4 1.6
Participation rate 63.8 63.8 0.0 -0.9
Unemployment rate 13.9 14.3 0.4 0.4
Employment rate 54.9 54.7 -0.2 -1.0
Part-time rate 47.2 47.4 0.2 -0.2
Men, 25 years and over
Population 11,639.1 11,653.9 14.8 161.3 0.1 1.4
Labour force 8,495.0 8,503.0 8.0 125.6 0.1 1.5
Employment 7,954.6 7,973.8 19.2 128.5 0.2 1.6
Full-time 7,343.1 7,364.3 21.2 137.7 0.3 1.9
Part-time 611.5 609.6 -1.9 -9.1 -0.3 -1.5
Unemployment 540.3 529.2 -11.1 -2.9 -2.1 -0.5
Participation rate 73.0 73.0 0.0 0.1
Unemployment rate 6.4 6.2 -0.2 -0.2
Employment rate 68.3 68.4 0.1 0.1
Part-time rate 7.7 7.6 -0.1 -0.3
Women, 25 years and over
Population 12,145.7 12,160.4 14.7 162.2 0.1 1.4
Labour force 7,528.1 7,534.4 6.3 119.9 0.1 1.6
Employment 7,092.0 7,092.5 0.5 120.7 0.0 1.7
Full-time 5,537.1 5,528.7 -8.4 75.1 -0.2 1.4
Part-time 1,554.9 1,563.8 8.9 45.6 0.6 3.0
Unemployment 436.1 441.9 5.8 -0.7 1.3 -0.2
Participation rate 62.0 62.0 0.0 0.2
Unemployment rate 5.8 5.9 0.1 -0.1
Employment rate 58.4 58.3 -0.1 0.2
Part-time rate 21.9 22.0 0.1 0.2
not applicable
Note(s): 
Related CANSIM table 282-0087.

 

Feel Free to Comment

  1. Thanks for the positive spin on things! Here on the east coast people are only talking about EI reforms and how it will affect the seasonal worker.

    Adding more full-time jobs however is always a positive.

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