Canada's unemployment rate dips in July
Canada's unemployment rate dipped slightly in July to 6.1 per cent, despite losing 55,000 jobs in the month, Statistics Canada reported Friday.
Still, last month's jobless rate means that Canada's unemployment level remains close to a 30-year low.
Statistics Canada said July's job losses, the largest monthly reduction in 17 years, were offset by the number of Canadians who left the job market.
"The unemployment rate edged down 0.1 percentage points to 6.1 per cent, as many people, particularly youth, left the labour force," said the federal agency in a press release.
Last month's figures represented an improvement over June, when the national jobless rate stood at 6.2 per cent.
Negative trendEconomists, however, argued that the slight movement in the top-line employment indicator is hiding a seismic shift in Canada's job-creation machine.
"The [downwards] trend is no surprise. Anyone reading the newspapers has been well aware of the flurry of plant closings and downsizing announcements," Avery Shenfeld, an economist with CIBC World Markets, said in a market commentary on Friday.
Governments, however, have expanded their workforces by more than six per cent in the past 12 months. That increase has masked the severe slowdown in private sector hiring.
For-profit firms have only boosted their employee base by 0.5 per cent over the same period.
If these figures hold for the remainder of the year, Canada will add new jobs at the slowest pace since 1992.
A total of 17.1 million men and women were employed in July, down from June, but still 1.3 per cent more than were working this time last year.
Last month's losses came mainly from 48,000 fewer part-timers having jobs. Employees who do not work a 40-hour week often enter and exit the workforce fairly rapidly, according to economists.
The problem for the Canadian economy, however, is that the part-time area has grown in terms of employment much faster than the number of full-time jobs, 3.5 per cent compared to 0.9 per cent for full-time work.
Alberta loses jobsCentral Canada was the worst performing region according to these statistics as Ontario's flagging manufacturing sector chewed up 41,000 more jobs. Overall, the country's most populous province lost 19,000 jobs.
Still, Ontario's unemployment rate edged down to 6.4 per cent, but only because 42,000 people left the workforce.
Perhaps surprisingly, the red-hot Alberta economy lost jobs in July, almost 4,000 positions, only the second monthly loss this year.
Slumping oil prices hurting Alberta's job picture(Canadian Press)Economists noted previously that the province has had trouble attracting enough workers for its growing industries, a factor that often actually caps an economy's growth.
In addition, Alberta's oil sector is facing problems in terms of slumping crude prices. For instance, at least one prominent oil sands project has been put on hold recently, a situation that analysts at least partially attributed to lower crude prices.
Overall, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba and British Columbia saw their workforces expand in the month, while the other six provinces posted lower employment numbers.
The manufacturing sector, hurt by a strong Canadian dollar and fierce competition from Asia, lost 32,000 jobs in July. The performance in this sector has worsened compared to this time last year. In the past 12 months, the country has lost 88,000 manufacturing jobs.
The only industry to show appreciable gains in employment in July was the accommodation and food service sector, up 22,000 jobs in the month.
0 comments:
Post a Comment