Statistics Canada released its latest labour market survey results on Friday, February 4th - and it is good news. 69,000 new jobs were created, and although unemployment edged up, it was simply because more people were looking for work (and presumably feel more optimistic about their chances of finding employment). But overall, the economic climate remains uncertain - so the recovery will likely remain uneven.
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Canada’s economy has been weathering the “great recession” better than most other developed economies, we were told, and the proof was supposedly in the job numbers. Unemployment is still quite high, but until Friday, Statistics Canada was at least reporting that Canada’s economy had already regained all jobs lost in the recession.

But on Friday, January 28th, the story changed. Statistics Canada issued a revision to employment numbers that it had reported previously. It turned out that, after all, the jobs lost in the recession have not been recovered quite yet. (more…)

Two economic reports released in the first half of January 2011 paint a confusing, somewhat contradictory picture of Canada’s prospects for economic recovery this year. But both of them agree that any recovery will be subdued, a far cry from the solid recovery many were hoping to see. (more…)

On balance, the Labour Force Survey results released by Statistics Canada in January 2011 for December - the last month of 2010 – offered good news. Employment increased, the new jobs created were in the private sector, and a relatively high percentage of them were full-time jobs. Hiring demand levels that we (VicinityJobs.com) monitor were relatively high compared to previous months as well – staying at about 10% above last year’s levels.

But December’s report comes on the heels of bleak news from the past couple month. Overall, the job market recovery remains disappointingly slow and unstable, especially given the magnitude of the collapse that we experienced in late 2008: The job market must grow at much faster pace if it is to recoup the momentum it lost in the past couple of years. Yet we are registering hiring demand levels (measured by number of job postings published online) at about one third below their pre-recession level, and the jobs that are being advertised are different from those that were lost. (more…)

On the face of it, the headline of the Statistics Canada labour market report for November sounded great: Unemployment dropped 0.3 percentage points to 7.6 % and is now at its lowest level since January 2009. But a closer look reveals that there is less substance behind this number than meets the eye. And those who were hoping that the numbers from South of the border would look better were bitterly disappointed as well.
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In a recently published survey, the Conference Board of Canada found that four in five Canadian organizations offer their employees performance incentives – including variable pay, annual incentives, performance bonuses etc – to motivate them to achieve performance goals. But most of the organizations offering these types of plans don’t measure the actual effect that these have on the organization’s results.

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On November 5th, 2010, Statistics Canada published the October result of its monthly labour market survey. It seems to indicate that the job market recovery has almost stalled, at a time of the year that is normally be characterized by steady job creation. The Vicinity Jobs hiring demand numbers from October also show that hiring pulled down sharply from its peak a month ago. What is unusual this time around is that other economic indicators – such as stock price indices – point to an overall economic recovery.

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According to a newly released report from Statistics Canada, the average weekly employment earnings rose 4.4% to $860.67 from August 2009 to August 2010. This is seen as a sign of strength in the economy, because the last time this growth exceeded 4% was in February 2008.
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A new survey of the Conference Board of Canada projects that due to the unsteady economic recovery, organizations are planning moderate base pay increases in 2011. Non-union employees are expected to see average increases of 2.8% in base pay. Increases in the private sector will be larger than those in public sector – but will vary significantly between different industries and between provinces. Ontario will see the lowest rate of increases in Canada.
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According to Statistics Canada there was little change in employment in September. Full time gains were offset by part-time losses. The rate of unemployment went down 0.1 point to 8.0 percent – but for the wrong reason: Some job seekers, mostly youth, seem to have given up looking for work and dropped out of the labour force altogether. This is disappointing, as economists had expected 10,000 new jobs to be created. This did not quite happen as expected.
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