According to the NDP, the news from Statistics Canada’s labour force survey is mostly bad.
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The unemployment rate in manufacturing remained unchanged, at 4.5 per cent.
The jobs report is the last major piece of economic data to be released before the upcoming federal election on October 19th. “Even more revealing is the mix of new employment by industry”.
In the natural resources sector, which has seen layoffs due to the downturn in oil prices, jobs declined by just 2,600. Professional, scientific and technical occupations are also down 11,000 jobs.
“We’re still not at that rate”.
“That’s the first time since 2009 that the unemployment rate has been above year-ago levels – not good”. The country did add full-time positions over the past year, however.
In the past 12 months, self employment is up 2.5 per cent, or 68,000; the private sector is up 0.6 per cent, or 71,000; and the public sector has been relatively stagnant. In educational services, employment dropped by 51,300 in the midst of recent provincial contract negotiations. “It bodes well for stability in the housing market”, he said. “The moves in the unemployment rate and payroll employment look like a better reflection of what is truly happening in Alberta’s labour market”.
In the United States the rate was 5.1 per cent. Compared with September 2014, the unemployment rate in Canada edged up by 0.1 percentage points, while the U.S. rate fell by 0.8 percentage points. The agency said 30,600 people entered the labor force.
About 12,000 new jobs were created from August to September, bringing the total number of Canadians employed last month to almost 18 million.
From the Bank of Canada’s perspective, there was little in today’s report that is likely to change their thinking.
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September saw losses in full-time employment and gains in part-time work.
