THE FEDERAL FANTASY OF 23,700 NEW ALBERTA JOBS
While premiers and the prime minister met in Montreal last week, Statistics Canada claimed that Alberta gained 23,700 jobs in a month.
Here at ground zero, the typical reaction was “What the …?” (insert your expletive).
It doesn’t look true, feel true or smell true. And it can’t be true, unless you like the chances of winning the lottery every week.
University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe explains why: “The margin of error on the job number survey, in this case, is plus or minus 20,000 jobs.”
That means “the range around that single point — 23,700 jobs — could be job gain as high as 43,700, or as low at 3,700.”
Some Albertans might believe this beleaguered province gained some jobs in one month.
But 43,700? Even 23,700? Absolutely absurd.
Such a high margin of error would never be accepted in election polling. When the subject is jobs, it makes a useful finding virtually impossible.
Tombe explains that Statistics Canada doesn’t intend these numbers to be taken as absolutes, but rather as “data points” that can be useful in determining a longer-range trend. It’s the only survey available and every province uses it.
The federal agency does release these hard numbers, however, no matter how crazy and errorridden they sound.
The Alberta government then jumps aboard, starting a closed loop of economic and political claims that may not even be close to the truth.
First, Alberta Treasury Board and Finance pumps out reports that routinely treat any positive federal number as gospel truth.
The latest Weekly Economic Review repeats many of the federal figures without even mentioning margins of error.
Then the NDP endlessly repeats the numbers.
When last week’s job figures came out, Premier Rachel Notley tweeted:
“All in, we have 80,000 more full-time jobs & fewer people relying on part-time work = 59,000 more jobs than Nov ’17.”
All that is based on those federal surveys, with their massive error margins.
The opposition is equally eager to pounce on bad numbers, of course. There have been plenty of those from Statistics Canada in recent years.
But the provincial government, as fiscal custodian, has a special duty to be accurate and responsible.
These days it’s hard to resist the conclusion that reports from Treasury and Finance are often political documents aimed at painting the brightest possible picture.
“Employment jumped in November following modest declines in the last two months,” the latest Weekly Review says.
“Alberta added 23,700 jobs month-over-month, fuelled by strong gains in full-time and private sector positions. Job gains were also broad-based on an industry basis …
“With the strong monthly increase in employment and a drop in the participation rate, the unemployment rate fell a full percentage point to 6.3 per cent, reversing most of the increases since May 2018.”
All that, without mentioning the fact that all those numbers have massive built-in error factors.
The federal survey has some use as a trend marker, but even then the conclusions can be doubtful.
Unemployment trended upward in 2018 for six worrisome months. And then, according to Statistics Canada, it abruptly dropped a full point — just as the oil differential crisis hit the province.
Remember, this is the same agency that had to apologize in Quebec last year after wildly overestimating the number of English-speakers in the province. It was one of those darned computer errors.
In the jobs report, some of the alleged gains in individual areas also look distinctly wonky.
The service sector is said to have gained 13,200 jobs. That wouldn’t be unexpected — except that 8,200 of those reported service jobs are supposed to be in health care.
On what alternate planet does the province add 8,200 jobs, mainly in the public sector, in a single month?
Tombe says the margin of error around that 8,200 number is plus or minus 7,600 jobs.
It would be wonderful to believe these claims issued by Ottawa and trumpeted by the NDP.
Everybody loves a good fairy tale. But the truth would be more useful.