On the face of it, the July unemployment numbers released by Statistics Canada on August 6, 2010 look quite disappointing: Unemployment increased across Canada, growing from 7.9% to 8%. The only bright spot really seemed to be Western Canada (whose economy is strongly dependant on the resource industries and on the commodity market trends). Unemployment in BC dipped 0.3 percentage points from 7.8% to 7.5%. However, hiring demand that that VicinityJobs.com gathers suggests that the worsening is unlikely to persist – at least in the Greater Toronto Area. (more…)

Statistics Canada released its latest labour force survey on Friday (read the full survey here: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/100507/dq100507a-eng.htm ), and it seems to be all good news. Employment grew in April at a rate not seen since 2002. In fact, the rate of employment gains in April was comparable to the magnitude of monthly employment losses that we were seeing in the early months of the recession.
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On September 3^rd (with a federal election looming) Steven Harper announced his Government’s decision to “invest” 80 million dollars into Ford’s future. Everyone looked happy: The Government of Ontario, the Opposition, the CAW… The Opposition and the CAW said that this decision was long overdue. Canada’s Industry Minister Jim Prentice claimed that this “investment” will help make the Canadian automobile industry more competitive and will “create or sustain” up to 750 jobs. A week later came another sobering announcement: Ford announced the elimination of one of its shifts and the layoff of 500 workers from the same plant where Jim Prentice had made his announcement the week before.

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