Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Ontario and Canada October 2016 Employment Numbers, Big Gain in Part-Time Jobs for Ontario, Loss 7,200 Full-Time Jobs

Time to look at the October jobs numbers for Canada and Ontario.

For Canada, a big gain of 43,900 seasonally adjusted jobs in October. Unfortunately that total was driven by part-time job gains. Full-time jobs actually declined by 23,100 compared to a gain of 67,100. That's a ratio of 4.11 full-time jobs for every part-time job.

Since the start of the year, Canada is up 149,700 jobs, but down 12,200 full-time jobs. So the theme for the country in 2016 is basically stagnation for full-time jobs versus big gains in part-time jobs.

Ontario is similar to the overall Canadian numbers. Overall seasonally adjusted jobs were up 24,200 for the month. However full-time jobs declined by 7,200 jobs versus a gain of part-time 32,600 jobs.

For the year, Ontario has gained 52,600 jobs, an increase of 0.755%, which is lower than the working age population growth of 1.09%. For the year the number of full-time jobs has declined by 24,200 compared to a big gain of 76,900 part-time jobs. So in some sense for Ontario, October followed the overall pattern of 2016: big gains in part-time employment, small losses in full-time employment.

Given the progressive nature of Ontario's income tax system, this full-time part-time change can't be a good trade-off for government revenues.