JOBS WELL DONE
With another month of labour growth, unemployment in Ontario falls to its lowest rate in 16 years,
Unemployment in Ontario has fallen to its lowest rate in 16 years — 5.7 per cent — as the province reported another month of job growth in August.
“This has been another outstanding month for job growth,” Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid said at Queen’s Park Friday morning. “In all, we’re up 31,000 net new jobs. If you combine that with the other outstanding month we had (in July), we’re up well over 50,000 net new jobs in the last two months alone.”
With unemployment dropping to levels not seen since 2001, Duguid — a hockey enthusiast — said “to put that in perspective, Connor McDavid was in junior kindergarten the last time the unemployment rate was this low.”
Across Canada, the jobs market remained strong, with 22,200 positions added in August and a countrywide unemployment rate of 6.2 per cent, down from 6.3 per cent in July — which is also a nine-year low.
However, nationally, as in Ontario, most growth was in part-time work, with 110,400 more part-time jobs but 88,100 fewer full-time positions.
In Ontario, full-time positions were down 26,000, and part-time up 57,000, but Duguid called that an anomaly.
“That is in stark contrast to what the normal trend has been, monthto-month,” he said. “It’s not in keeping with the trend that 86 per cent of jobs being created are full time.”
He said that since the financial crisis, Ontario has gained 760,000 net new jobs. “And the other good news is that if you dig a little bit deeper into the numbers, 74 per cent of the jobs are in the private sector, 74 per cent are above the average wage and 86 per cent of those jobs are full-time jobs.”
While “we still have work to do” in what is still a “tough global economy,” Duguid said it remains “a very real economic period of growth for the province of Ontario.”
Most sectors are doing well, he said, especially information and communications technology, which is “booming.”
“I think we have 20,000 ICT companies now in Ontario,” he said, “so there’s no question that’s a sector that’s helping to drive the economy.”
Manufacturing, aerospace, bioscience and film and entertainment are also “trending positively for the most part.”
Ontario’s unemployment rate fell 0.4 percentage points in August, its lowest rate since 2001. Employment has gone up 154,000 compared to August of last year, Statistics Cana- da reports.
But PC labour critic John Yakabuski said the news is not all good, as Liberal government policies has left job creation and wages “stagnated.”
“Middle-class families haven’t had a raise since 2003,” he said. “(Premier) Kathleen Wynne has had four years to fix this and is only trying to do so now because of an election.”
He also called raising the minimum wage to $15 a job-killer, adding “the Liberal plan to rush it through is reckless. We worry that it will cost 185,000 lost jobs, according to experts, and drive up prices for everything from groceries to child care. It’s too fast, too soon.”
Nationally, Statistics Canada said most of the decline in full-time work was concentrated among young Canadians aged 15 to 24 years old. The youth category also showed a notable decrease last month as fewer young people looked for work.
The August numbers also showed a decline of10,400 paid employee positions, while the number of people who described themselves as self-employed, including unpaid workers in family businesses, increased by 32,700.
“While very solid on the surface, the details of this report are generally sluggish, leaving a mixed bag,” BMO chief economist Doug Porter wrote in a research brief for clients.
Looking at the bigger picture, the latest numbers said the labour market expanded 2.1 per cent compared to a year earlier with the addition of 374,300 net new jobs. Of those new jobs, 213,400 were full time.
The data provided yet another sign the economy continued to have momentum after a stronger-thanexpected start to 2017 that has also prompted two interest-rate hikes by the Bank of Canada.
The latest rate increase came earlier this week after a report showed Canadian economic growth expanded at an annual pace of 4.5 per cent from April to June.