Statistics Canada’s monthly job market survey for February 2011 was released on Friday, March 11th and paints a bleak picture. February saw employment gains of some 15,000 jobs, but these came on the heals of self-employed increasing by 26,000 jobs. This is hardly encouraging because many people pursue self-employment simply because they cannot find jobs – but the income that they generate tends to often be less than what they would expect to make if they were employed. This means that actual employment dropped by 11,000. The number of private sector workers declined. (more…)

The Peel Halton Workforce Development Group, in partnership with Sheridan College and other government-sponsored employment services organizations in Peel and Halton Regions, are hosting their annual Peel and Halton job fair in Mississauga on March 30th. They are now looking for employers interested in participating in the event.

This event is partially funded by Employment Ontario, so the cost to employers is fairly low - $150 for “virtual” participation and $500 for an actual booth, and provides an opportunity to meet thousands of job seekers. If you are interested, you can find out more at the web site of the event, at:

http://www.peelhaltonjobfair.ca

You can also click here to download an electronic brochure introducing the event

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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Our community partners at Sheridan College are hosting a free workshop for employers titled “Are you ready? on November 24th 2010, in partnership with the other Greater Toronto Area (GTA) community colleges, including Centennial, Durham, Humber, George Brown, Seneca. This is a full-day workshop, dealing with the challenges involved in effectively recruiting and hiring qualified immigrants. It is designed to help employers to improve their cultural competence by:

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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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