Government hiring spree helps city

The capital region’s jobless slipped to 6.1 per cent in December from 6.2 per cent in November thanks largely to a surge in government employment, Statistics Canada reported Friday.

The number of federal government workers locally jumped by 5,900 in December to reach 145,100, the highest total since June 2010.

However, the hiring binge appears concentrated in the capital region — federal government employment elsewhere in the country actually shrank by 1,500 positions over the same period.

This appears to be something of a catch-up. The federal government workforce locally was 145,000 when the Liberals won power in October 2015, then slipped to as low as 127,500 before recovering over the last few months.

What may be happening is federal departments are finally finding their feet and hiring to implement new policies and fill open positions. In some cases, there’s been extra hiring to try to fix poorly implemented software and computer infrastructure projects.

Taking the longer view, there has been a pronounced centralization of the federal government. In December, the capital region accounted for 40.6 per cent of total federal government workers — compared with less than 33 per cent in 2001.

Whatever the reason, it has kept the region’s jobless rate relatively low. Despite the big contribution from government, the capital region’s total employment in December (unadjusted for seasonality) was up just 2,200 compared to November. This implies all other sectors suffered a net decline of 3,700.

Among the losers in December: the tech sector (down 1,700 to 47,200), finance and real estate (down 1,600 to 31,700) and food services (down 1,000 to 43,300).

The statistics were encouraging on the Gatineau side, where the jobless rate fell to 6.1 per cent in December, a sizable drop from 6.7 per cent in November.

Nationally, the jobless rate climbed from 6.8 per cent in November to 6.9 per cent in December, even though the economy added 153,700 net new part-time jobs last year and just 60,400 full-time