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 monthly labour market survey report  this morning (July 10th) for the month of June, and overall, it is fairly good news (the original report is found here: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/100709/dq100709a-eng.htm). Canada’s economy created 93,000 jobs – significantly more than generally expected. The trend was lead by Ontario, whereas employment in British Columbia remained unchanged.

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Statistics Canada published the results of its monthly labour market survey on Friday, June 4th. It indicates that even though Canada’s unemployment rate did not change in May, unemployment in Ontario and British Columbia grew. (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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Statistics Canada released its regular monthly Labour Force Survey report today (October 9, 2009) and it contains good news: Employment in Canada increased in September by 31,000 jobs, and unemployment dropped for the first time since the fall of last year. The increase marked the second month in a row in which employment increased in Canada. Unemployment now stands at 8.4% in Canada, at 9.2% in Ontario, and at 7.4% in British Columbia. (more…)

A new StatCan report regarding May’s Employment Numbers indicates that employment in Canada decreased by 42,000 in May and unemployment rose to 8.4% - Canada’s highest rate for 11 years. The job losses were concentrated in Ontario, where unemployment reached 9.4% - its highest value in 15 years. In fact, Ontario lost 60,000 jobs in May, bringing total losses since last October to 234,000 or 3.5%. While Ontario accounts for 39% of the total working-age population, it has experienced 64% of overall employment losses since the start of the labour market downturn. The remaining provinces saw little changes in May, and Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan even experienced increases in employment.
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According to a report released by Statistics Canada recently, 681,400 people were receiving regular Employment Insurance benefits in March 2009, up by 65,300 or 10.6% from the previous month. The strongest percent increases occurred in Alberta and British Columbia, but this to some extent is due to the fact that these provinces had low unemployment rates compared to other parts of the country at the beginning of the recession – so now they seem bound to catch up with the rest of the country. (more…)

In early February, we released the Vicinity Jobs monthly hiring index reports and expressed cautious optimism that Ontario’s job market may have bottomed already (read article). Unfortunately, the February numbers (which we just released) dashed our hopes.

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