Ont. jobs market ‘treading water’

Windsor moves up a rung to second-worst in country

Ontario’s job creation initiatives came under attack from the provincial Conservatives Friday as Windsor lost its title as the unemployment capital of Canada for the first time in 15 months.

“The jobs market is treading water right now,” said PC economic development critic Monte McNaughton.

“The province only gained enough jobs last month to keep up with the growth in the labour force, which is why the provincial unemployment rate barely budged from eight per cent (in August),” said McNaughton, who added that Ontario has lost 30,000 jobs in the past 12 months.

According to Statistics Canada, the Ontario economy added 31,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate edged down to 7.9 per cent.

Windsor’s unemployment rate fell from 9.2 per cent to nine per cent in September, the same as in Oshawa. That left Saint John, N.B., where the rate inched up to 9.1 per cent, Canada’s unemployment leader for the month.

Barrie held down fourth place in Canada with an unemployment rate of 8.9 per cent. Toronto, St. Catharines-Niagara and London stood at 8.5 per cent. The lowest rate among the 33 cities in the Statistics Canada survey was recorded in Regina at four per cent.

Nationally, the country gained 52,100 jobs in September but the unemployment edged up to 7.4 per cent from 7.3 per cent in August, as more people entered the labour market looking for work.

But it was the labour data south of the border, which suggest the U.S. recovery is finally underway, that demanded the attention of economists and markets. The U.S. Labor department said Friday that 114,000 new jobs were created in September. More importantly, it revised upwards its data for July and August — adding 86,000 jobs to those two months.

For the three months, job creation averaged 146,000 and took the unemployment rate to 7.8 per cent, the lowest in four years.

“I think (the U.S.) is the bigger news today, even for Canada,” said Bank of Montreal deputy chief economist Doug Porter.

“This is exactly what the Canadian economy needs right now because the consumer is close to being tapped out, housing doesn’t have any more room to grow, the government sector is cutting back (and) business are understandably cautious.

“So what we really need now is exports and exports need the U.S. economy to get going.”

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s office issued a statement that he was “encouraged” by the latest Canadian gains, noting that they bring to 820,000 the number of new jobs added since July 2009, when the economy started to recover from recession.