The story of jobs from November to December in 2014 was an odd mix, where there are a few less jobs, but there are more full-time folks, so a mixed bag of news. The real number is 4300 less jobs from November to December, but, if you look at the year over year numbers, there are 186,000 more jobs than last year at this time (and a lot of that growth is in the second half of 2014), so good news there.
The graph for employment reflects the “meh..” aspect to the numbers from last month:
Employment Graph for Past 5 years
As usual, the enigmatic unemployment rate remained unchanged, but what does that mean?
Unemployment for Past 5 years
We created 54,000 full-time jobs and lost 58,000 part-time jobs? Two edged sword, bad to lose jobs, good that we have more full-time jobs. Not good news for women over 25, let’s hope that gets remedied soon too.
Labour force characteristics by age and sex – Seasonally adjusted
I have edit’ed the table a little for readability on this site, you want the full picture, check it out on the Stats Canada web site.
| November 2014 |
December 2014 |
Std err1 | Nov to Dec 2014 | Dec 2013 to Dec 2014 | |
| thousands (except rates) | change in thousands (except rates) | ||||
| Both sexes, 15 years and over | |||||
| Population | 29,165.9 | 29,190.0 | … | 24.1 | 346.3 |
| Labour force | 19,236.6 | 19,225.4 | 29.1 | -11.2 | 74.0 |
| Employment | 17,957.9 | 17,953.6 | 28.9 | -4.3 | 185.7 |
| Full-time | 14,511.0 | 14,564.5 | 39.2 | 53.5 | 190.3 |
| Part-time | 3,446.9 | 3,389.2 | 36.1 | -57.7 | -4.5 |
| Unemployment | 1,278.6 | 1,271.8 | 24.9 | -6.8 | -111.7 |
| Participation rate | 66.0 | 65.9 | 0.1 | -0.1 | -0.5 |
| Unemployment rate | 6.6 | 6.6 | 0.1 | 0.0 | -0.6 |
| Employment rate | 61.6 | 61.5 | 0.1 | -0.1 | -0.1 |
| Part-time rate | 19.2 | 18.9 | 0.2 | -0.3 | -0.2 |
| Youths, 15 to 24 years | |||||
| Population | 4,403.2 | 4,399.9 | … | -3.3 | -40.0 |
| Labour force | 2,860.2 | 2,866.7 | 17.2 | 6.5 | 50.6 |
| Employment | 2,487.7 | 2,484.4 | 15.8 | -3.3 | 62.5 |
| Full-time | 1,258.2 | 1,293.0 | 18.6 | 34.8 | 43.6 |
| Part-time | 1,229.5 | 1,191.5 | 19.7 | -38.0 | 19.0 |
| Unemployment | 372.6 | 382.3 | 14.6 | 9.7 | -12.0 |
| Participation rate | 65.0 | 65.2 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 1.8 |
| Unemployment rate | 13.0 | 13.3 | 0.5 | 0.3 | -0.7 |
| Employment rate | 56.5 | 56.5 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 2.0 |
| Part-time rate | 49.4 | 48.0 | 0.7 | -1.5 | -0.5 |
| Men, 25 years and over | |||||
| Population | 12,132.3 | 12,145.8 | … | 13.5 | 194.6 |
| Labour force | 8,688.8 | 8,702.6 | 15.1 | 13.8 | 64.4 |
| Employment | 8,182.9 | 8,209.7 | 16.4 | 26.8 | 127.4 |
| Full-time | 7,541.9 | 7,560.0 | 22.0 | 18.1 | 118.9 |
| Part-time | 641.0 | 649.8 | 18.0 | 8.8 | 8.6 |
| Unemployment | 506.0 | 492.9 | 14.5 | -13.1 | -62.9 |
| Participation rate | 71.6 | 71.7 | 0.1 | 0.1 | -0.6 |
| Unemployment rate | 5.8 | 5.7 | 0.2 | -0.1 | -0.7 |
| Employment rate | 67.4 | 67.6 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.0 |
| Part-time rate | 7.8 | 7.9 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| Women, 25 years and over | |||||
| Population | 12,630.4 | 12,644.4 | … | 14.0 | 191.8 |
| Labour force | 7,687.5 | 7,656.1 | 16.6 | -31.4 | -41.0 |
| Employment | 7,287.4 | 7,259.5 | 16.4 | -27.9 | -4.3 |
| Full-time | 5,711.0 | 5,711.6 | 25.7 | 0.6 | 27.9 |
| Part-time | 1,576.5 | 1,547.9 | 24.0 | -28.6 | -32.2 |
| Unemployment | 400.1 | 396.6 | 13.3 | -3.5 | -36.7 |
| Participation rate | 60.9 | 60.5 | 0.1 | -0.4 | -1.3 |
| Unemployment rate | 5.2 | 5.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | -0.4 |
| Employment rate | 57.7 | 57.4 | 0.1 | -0.3 | -0.9 |
| Part-time rate | 21.6 | 21.3 | 0.3 | -0.3 | -0.4 |
1. Average standard error for change in two consecutive months. See “Sampling variability of estimates” in the section “About the Labour Force Survey” at the end of the publication Labour Force Information (Catalogue number71-001-X) for further explanations.
Note(s):
The sum of individual categories may not always add up to the total as a result of rounding.
Source(s):
CANSIM table 282-0087.
