Maybe it will give Canadians something to be thankful for after all – one of them being Stephen Harper, perhaps.
After weeks of apocalyptic economic news that left investors and consumers white-knuckled, in rolled tidings Friday from Statistics Canada that provided at least a ray of sunshine heading into the long Thanksgiving weekend.
The nation’s number crunchers released information saying, following a decline in July and a small gain in August, employment increased by 107,000 in September. One proviso, though: almost all of this increase – 97,000 – was in part-time work.
Analysts were reportedly expecting a modest pickup, something in the 12,500 range.
Last month's overall jump – taken with a grain of salt – was the largest since the agency began collecting the data more than 30 years ago. The 97,000 added jobs equals the record number from January 2002.
But, before anyone pops the champagne corks, StatsCan cautions that despite the gain, last month’s unemployment rate was unchanged from August at 6.1 per cent, as the increase in employment was matched by a similar rise in labour force participation.
In the beleaguered province of Ontario, employment rose by 52,000 in September, bringing growth so far in 2008 to 1.6 per cent. Despite these gains, the unemployment rate edged up to 6.4 per cent, as a large number of people entered the labour market.
So far this year in Ontario, employment increases have occurred in transportation and warehousing, construction, accommodation and food services, and health care and social assistance, while there has been a 16,000-job decline in manufacturing.
Meanwhile, in the economic region that includes Simcoe County, things remained the same. Economic Region 540 posted an unemployment rate of 5.7 per cent in September, unchanged from the same month last year. Simcoe County shares Economic Region 540 with Wellington County and Waterloo Region.
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