80,000 jobs lost last month in Ontario

August decline the sharpest since 2009 recession

In more population sobering than of 80,000 news Peterborough. for jobs rookie last Premier month — Doug the Ford, equivalent Ontario of lost the Canada That’s monthly the province’s employment greatest survey loss of since jobs the in 2009 a Statistics global recession, though it seems largely due to seasonal fluctuation. While Ontario’s unemployment rate rose to 5.7 per cent in August — up 0.3 percentage points from July — it remains lower than Canada’s national average of 6 per cent and well under the 8 per cent during the depth of the worldwide slump. Still, last month’s decline of 80,100 jobs is the sharpest drop since January 2009 when 95,700 jobs vanished during the biggest international financial crisis since the Great Depression.

In a break with tradition at Queen’s Park on the days that Statistics Canada releases monthly job numbers, Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade Minister Jim Wilson was not available on Friday.

But in a brief statement, Wilson blamed the grim statistics on the previous Liberal government of former premier Kathleen Wynne even though unemployment has been at a generation-low level for the past year.

“The latest job numbers are a reminder of the Wynne Liberals’ 15-year legacy of scandal, waste and mismanagement,” said the minister, whose Progressive Conservatives were elected June 7.

“While the NDP stood by and propped up the Liberals, the PCs stood up for the people and put forward a plan to get Ontario back on track,” he said. “We will create and protect jobs by sending the message that ‘Ontario is open for business.’” NDP MPP Catherine Fife (Waterloo) mocked the Tories for promising to install promotional signage at the U.S. border, saying they clearly don’t have a real plan.

“The neon ‘open for business’ sign on the border is not an economic strategy — in fact, I think it looks somewhat farcical,” said Fife, pointing out that Ford’s unilateral cancelling of hundreds of green energy contracts “certainly does not instill confidence for investors.”

“Mr. Ford’s string of shortsighted decisions and backward priorities compromises confidence in our economy and threatens the continued creation of good jobs in the province,” she said.

Fife denied that the decision to raise the hourly minimum wage on Jan. 1 to $14 from $11.60 caused the spike in part-time job losses. While that wage is set to jump to $15 Jan. 1, the Tories have pledged to stop that. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce, which represents 60,000 businesses, last week appealed to the government to scrap the raise and water down the Liberals’ labour reforms.

Rocco Rossi, the chamber’s president and CEO, on Friday expressed concern about “the biggest employment decline in almost a decade.”

“Today’s news reflects what we have been hearing from our members for months — we need to build an economy that connects workers to jobs and this begins with the immediate repeal of Bill148, the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act,” said Rossi. “The Ontario business community has made it clear — Bill 148 has led to a substantial decrease in staff hours and capital investment as well as an increased reliance on automation. This dramatic decline in over 80,000 jobs reflects the work that must be done to build a prosperous and competitive province.”

That act instituted paid, job-protected emergency leave days for all workers, increased holiday benefits, mandated equal pay for casual and parttime workers doing the same job as full-time employees, and increased protections for those at temporary agencies.

TD Bank senior economist Brian DePratto said the report is “definitely not quite as bad as the headline would suggest.”

DePratto said while Ontario shed 80,100 jobs last month, the province gained 60,600 in July, so summertime part-time labour swings played a role.