Canada adds 22,800 jobs in December
Ontario offsets Alberta’s decline as jobless rate steady at 7.1%
A sobering combination of collapsing oil prices, slow global growth and an aging population has resulted in one of the most sluggish labour markets in Canadian history.
Employment rose, on average, less than 1-per cent for a second consecutive year in 2015 — which has only happened four times since 1945, Statistics Canada data released Friday shows.
However, a bright spot was Ontario, the biggest job generator in December that helped offset steep employment declines in Canada’s struggling oilpatch and fuel Canada’s increase of 22,800 jobs, which held the unemployment rate steady at 7.1 per cent last month.
Ontario posted the strongest job growth of all the provinces in December, reporting a net gain of 34,900 jobs, which helped lower its unemployment rate from 6.9 per cent to 6.7 per cent.
“The big dogs are wagging the Canadian jobs tail,” said Robert Kavcic, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets.
“Ontario now stands alongside B.C. and Quebec as the clear-cut Canadian job creators” last year, he said.
Statistics Canada also released the overall job numbers for 2015, which show employment in Ontario increased by 81,000 jobs, or 1.2 per cent, for the year.
But the average job growth of 1.1-per cent over the past decade is rivalled only by the slump in the 1990s in Canada’s postwar era.
The creation of 158,100 jobs in Canada last year also wasn’t enough to prevent the unemployment rate from rising to 7.1 per cent from 6.7 per cent.
And observers say the prospect of further layoffs in the energy and resource-producing provinces of Alberta and Newfoundland means 2016 may see little improvement.
Economists polled by Bloomberg project unemployment will average 6.9 per cent this year.
Employment gains in 2015 had an interesting demographic dimension, with growth concentrated in workers over the age of 55. Meanwhile core working-aged people (25 to 54 years old) saw employment fall slightly in 2015.
Seven of 10 provinces posted employment declines in December as gains in heavyweights Ontario and Quebec (as well as a small bump up in New Brunswick) helped offset losses elsewhere.
Job creation across the country though was concentrated in parttime and self-employment, which recorded an increase of 40,300 positions in December. Meanwhile, fulltime jobs fell by 6,400.
The December increase follows a drop of 35,700 jobs in November, a decline largely tied to the previous month’s rise in temporary work like- ly generated by the federal election.
“All told, a nice headline masking a continuing trend for weak hiring by private sector companies in Canada,” Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, said in a note to clients.
Ottawa’s latest jobs report also shows Toronto and Vancouver fared far better last month than in December 2014.
“This clearly highlights how these cities have been relatively immune (if not benefiting) from the plunge in oil prices. Both are seeing 4-percent-plus job growth, nearly 2-percent population growth and falling jobless rates, and yet many are still surprised that these housing markets are performing so well,” Kavcic said in a research note.
Oil prices, however, have had a major negative impact in Calgary, which has slumped 12 spots in the city employment ranking over the past year. Alberta’s economy shed 4,000 jobs last month to bring the total job loss in the oil-producing province to 14,600 in 2015.
At Queen’s Park, Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid said Ontario’s annual unemployment rate for 2015 is the lowest since 2008 thanks to strong job creation in the province in December.
“We’re continuing to lead the country,” Duguid told reporters, acknowledging that the job figures often fluctuate from month to month. “There’s still too many Ontarians out of work.”
While the low dollar is a “boost” to Ontario’s manufacturing sector, the province and its industries should not be relying on it solely for competitive advantage, added Duguid, who will head to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit next week to meet with chief executives from Fiat Chrysler, General Motors and other automakers to seek new vehicles for assembly lines here.
Opposition parties warned high electricity prices are eating into the break that exporters are enjoying from the falling loonie.
“Half a million people are still looking for work in this province,” said Progressive Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton (LambtonKent-Middlesex), who noted Ontario lost about as many jobs in November as it gained in December.
Youth unemployment in the province also remains above the national average and too many families are worried that kids graduating from university are having trouble finding work, while Windsor had Canada’s highest unemployment rate for 11 months last year and Oshawa was regularly in the top 10, said New Democrat MPP Catherine Fife (Kitchener-Waterloo).
Employment in British Columbia, meanwhile, grew by 2.3 per cent last year — the highest rate of any province — as it added 52,000 jobs.
Resource-rich Newfoundland and Labrador was the only province that experienced a decline in employment last year. Its employment rate decreased 1.8 per cent as it shed 4,300 jobs. For 2015, the provincial unemployment rate rose 2.6 percentage points to 14.4 per cent.
The year-end data says employment fell by 6.8 per cent in the battered mining industry following the sharp slide in commodity prices.