Friday, October 07, 2005

Jobs? Jobs? Jobs?

So much for the positive predictions about Canada's jobs rate:
The Canadian economy unexpectedly shed 2,300 jobs in September, the first dip since January, as employers in the finance, insurance, real-estate and leasing business slashed payrolls, Statistics Canada said Friday...

“The details were not quite as sour as the headlines, but not strong enough to erase the bad taste,” said Doug Porter, senior economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns in a note, as full-time jobs rose by 19,200 jobs, while part-time positions accounted for the weakness, dropping 21,400.

The number of self-employed rose by 30,000 in September, while the number of private and public sector employees declined.

While the entrepreneurship involved in the self-employed sector is commendable, the rest of the numbers are all to the negative: assuming that at least 19,200 of the new self-employed were classified as full-time, that would have meant drops in both full-time and part-time employment outside of the self-employed, rather than the expected gains in jobs. And what's worse, the jobless percentage went down as well - implying that there was an even greater drop in people looking for work than in jobs available.

Some of the monthly effect seems like it could be linked to the end of summer (in particular a drop in youth employment). But that should have been taken into account in the previously-predicted gain for this month. Which makes one wonder whether the public's lack of confidence was the more accurate indicator all along.

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