I’ve been examining the Statistics Canada employment data released on Friday. And while I’m not an economist (although I have a background in economic history), some observations are troubling me in relation to the doom and gloom being peddled by the media and some top Canadian economists.
Overall, employment was down 34,000 jobs in December. (Canada’s population is roughly 1/10 the size of the U.S., for comparison purposes). That places Canadian employment at June 2008 levels - hardly worth panicking about.
Manufacturing jobs are down in Canada, particularly in Ontario. But this trend has been happening since the 1990s. The economic downturn may just be accelerating a process that was inevitable.
Construction jobs are down, too. But this should hardly be surprising given that many residential and non-residential developers cannot obtain the credit needed to finance construction.
Elsewhere, things look okay, too. Management, professional, engineering, finance, and administrative occupations are generally showing stability if not employment increases over the past few months, and year on year. (Indeed the Martin Prosperity Institute issued an Insights report on this phenomenon in Ontario last month)
Canadian firms - so far - have not been shedding workers, generally speaking. This may be because Canada’s economic downturn did not begin until approximately late September 2008 (in contrast to the U.S. downturn that began almost a year earlier) - and the job losses are still to come.
Or, this may be because of the demographic deficit in Canada and directly related talent shortage - generations x and y are far smaller proportionally than the baby boomers (again in contrast to the U.S.). Employers may fear that if they cut too many talented people, they’ll never be able to hire the same caliber of people - or that their competitors will quickly absorb them.
Perhaps in time the doom and gloom will become a (self?) fulfilled prophecy - in the meantime, I eagerly await your thoughts.
Although many firms in Canada are not hiring, they are not firing either - yet. This has implications for the workplace that we can discuss below and I’ll raise in subsequent posts.
(And Happy New Year!)
January 12th, 2009 at 10:11 am
There are also 2.5 million self-employed people in Canada, according to StatsCan, more than in the manufacturing sector. Counting jobs is only one perspective on the state of the economy.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Great point, Harold. Actually, I was wondering about that very question last night in looking through the latest labour force stats — total employment for Canada seemed low to me at 13.5 million. Having another 2.5 million self employed makes the number more reasonable.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:41 am
I think the acticle said the manufacturing jobs actually increased by 8,900 in December so why couldn’t the headline have said ” Manufacturing jobs increase in December” ?
January 12th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Equally good point about the press — or “engineering jobs increase” or “accounting jobs increase.”
I’ll dive more into the manufacturing jobs today — but I think they were up in Ontario in December, but net down since the summer. Nationally across Canada I think they were down. Still, a headline of “Manufacturing jobs increase in Ontario in December” would have been nice to see.
Although –or because — doom and gloom is trendy, I’m surprised the media wouldn’t want to occasionally put a positive headline out there — it would sell papers as much as a negative one right now, or more so.