By Jamie Barrie I t was not too long ago that if someone you knew needed a job fast, you would advise them to move to Alberta without thinking about it. Today, things aren’t so clear in the Canada job market. With record layoffs in the West the hot spot in Canada to get a job is now Guelph, Ontario with the lowest unemployment rate in Canada at 4.2 percent (down 0.9 percentage points in a year) and as annual employment growth rate of 9.1 percent and the percent of the people with employment is at 72. When you look at Canada as a whole for numbers release, in July of this year Canada had a disappointing job creation effort with the national unemployment rate that rose to 6.9 percent. It gets worse; Canada lost nearly 31,000 jobs in July which is the single biggest monthly drop since 2011. If you are young and looking for work, well it was tough also as youth employment plummeted with 24,000 less jobs for Canadians aged 15-24. The declines although significant are not surprising to experts as in May, Canada saw the biggest monthly drop in GDP in seven years at 0.6% in the month of May. More worrisome is that the vast
paying jobs as employers fight to retain and attract the best talent for vacate positions.
With America job growth hitting decade highs for the country some cities job growth has been off the chart. Most metro areas have enjoyed progress; particular cities have seen phenomenal progress. There were 9 cities in the U.S. with job growth exceeding 15 percent, which is an amazing number for those looking for work and 6 percent high than the best city for growth in Canada. But if you’re looking for a job in the States head West to the City of Redmond, Oregon where job growth rates are off the chart and hit a record level of 20.9 percent, twice the level of the highest job growth city in Canada. Not every area was as lucky as Redmond in the U.S. As some cities and areas have seen significant job creation, Atlantic City, New Jersey has not been so lucky, suffered a 6.8 percent loss in positions of employment, and repre- sented the largest decline in the nation. The gains and losses in the US economy are tied to par- ticular sectors such as healthcare, public service, retail trade and professional services. The business and profes- sional services sector were the strongest and accounted for most of the jobs created in the top 25 cities. It also must be said that Canada uses a different measure to gauge the unemployment rate than the United States. In Canada, 15-year-olds are included in surveys of the working age population and therefore are included in their calculations where in the United States, 15-year-olds are not included in the calculations. Analysts state that if the Canadian’s unemployment rate were adjusted to U.S. concepts, it would be reduced by 1 percentage point, but that would still change the number for job created.
majority of recent job growth that is being recorded in Canada has been part time work. The story has been much brighter south of the 49th parallel with Amer- icans enjoying solid job growth, with the creation of more than 10 million jobs over the last four years. The American unemployment rate has dropped from 8.2 percent to 4.9 percent in that same period making it the lowest in a decade, which is great news for those looking for work or looking to move to higher
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS • SEPTEMBER 2016
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