Part-Time Job Creation Rules
Stats Canada published their employment numbers on Friday, and on first glance it read well with almost 35,000 new jobs, but our economy seems to continue to create part-time jobs, which are good, but continues to push Gen Y into the, multi-job to make ends meet, life.
To quote our friends they pointed out:
In the 12 months to January, employment increased by 128,000 (+0.7%) with most of the growth in the second half of the period.
In January, part-time employment increased by 47,000 and full-time was little changed.
Part time jobs have some bad side-effects with little or no benefits, no retirement benefits and usually being where employers cut jobs first. Are our employers addicted to part-time employees? Seems like it.
Employment continues to rise for the past little while (5 years)
(from Stats Canada Labour Survey January 2015)
Unemployment dropped during this time period as well, by 0.1%. The employment growth was largely in women 55 and over, which might explain the part-time job part too (older employees being hired part-time to fill in gaps).
Unemployment in Canada over last 5 years
(Courtesy Stats Canada Labour Force Survey January 2015)
There is one encouraging sentence in the report (for me):
The number of people employed in professional, scientific and technical services rose by 22,000 in January, the first notable increase since July 2013.
The other side of the coin is that there are a great deal less jobs in natural resources (and that will continue if Oil prices continue to stay low, but as we are seeing that is changing).
The Big Table
This month we look at jobs by age group and the percentage changes by month and year (I have altered the original table from Stats Canada, but you should check all this info out on their site).
Table 1
Labour force characteristics by age and sex – Seasonally adjusted
| December 2014 | January 2015 | Std error1 | Dec 2014 | Jan 2014 | |
| thousands (except rates) | % change | ||||
| Both sexes, 15 years and over | |||||
| Population | 29,116.6 | 29,139.2 | … | 0.1 | 1.1 |
| Labour force | 19,127.7 | 19,148.4 | 29.4 | 0.1 | 0.3 |
| Employment | 17,851.5 | 17,886.9 | 28.8 | 0.2 | 0.7 |
| Full-time | 14,466.0 | 14,454.2 | 39.6 | -0.1 | 0.8 |
| Part-time | 3,385.5 | 3,432.7 | 36.4 | 1.4 | 0.6 |
| Unemployment | 1,276.2 | 1,261.5 | 24.6 | -1.2 | -5.4 |
| Participation rate | 65.7 | 65.7 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 6.7 | 6.6 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 61.3 | 61.4 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 19.0 | 19.2 | 0.2 | … | … |
| Youths, 15 to 24 years | |||||
| Population | 4,455.0 | 4,451.4 | … | -0.1 | -0.9 |
| Labour force | 2,875.8 | 2,860.5 | 17.1 | -0.5 | 0.2 |
| Employment | 2,488.9 | 2,495.6 | 15.7 | 0.3 | 1.2 |
| Full-time | 1,289.5 | 1,286.5 | 19.0 | -0.2 | 2.1 |
| Part-time | 1,199.3 | 1,209.1 | 19.8 | 0.8 | 0.3 |
| Unemployment | 387.0 | 364.9 | 14.6 | -5.7 | -6.7 |
| Participation rate | 64.6 | 64.3 | 0.4 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 13.5 | 12.8 | 0.5 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 55.9 | 56.1 | 0.4 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 48.2 | 48.4 | 0.7 | … | … |
| Men, 25 years and over | |||||
| Population | 12,061.6 | 12,074.8 | … | 0.1 | 1.4 |
| Labour force | 8,631.7 | 8,636.1 | 15.5 | 0.1 | 0.5 |
| Employment | 8,143.5 | 8,137.5 | 16.5 | -0.1 | 1.0 |
| Full-time | 7,502.2 | 7,455.4 | 22.3 | -0.6 | 0.5 |
| Part-time | 641.3 | 682.1 | 18.4 | 6.4 | 6.8 |
| Unemployment | 488.2 | 498.6 | 14.5 | 2.1 | -6.2 |
| Participation rate | 71.6 | 71.5 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 5.7 | 5.8 | 0.2 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 67.5 | 67.4 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 7.9 | 8.4 | 0.2 | … | … |
| Women, 25 years and over | |||||
| Population | 12,599.9 | 12,613.1 | … | 0.1 | 1.4 |
| Labour force | 7,620.2 | 7,651.7 | 16.7 | 0.4 | 0.1 |
| Employment | 7,219.2 | 7,253.7 | 16.3 | 0.5 | 0.3 |
| Full-time | 5,674.2 | 5,712.2 | 25.3 | 0.7 | 0.8 |
| Part-time | 1,544.9 | 1,541.5 | 24.0 | -0.2 | -1.8 |
| Unemployment | 401.0 | 398.0 | 13.4 | -0.7 | -3.0 |
| Participation rate | 60.5 | 60.7 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Unemployment rate | 5.3 | 5.2 | 0.2 | … | … |
| Employment rate | 57.3 | 57.5 | 0.1 | … | … |
| Part-time rate | 21.4 | 21.3 | 0.3 | … | … |
…
not applicable
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.
I find it ridiculous how some organizations were saying the Canadian economy was surging based on this job report. When part-time jobs are replacing full-time ones, the economy is not doing alright.
That is my thoughts on this as well, part-time jobs are fine for a portion of the population, but if a family needs to have 5 part time jobs between both bread winners, the economy is not working correctly (and we need to count things differently, because in that scenario you have 5 “jobs” but being done by 2 people). ⚠