Don’t Believe The Headlines: Canada’s Latest Job Numbers Don’t Look Good
After two months of shrinking job numbers, it looked like Canada had broken the streak with this morning’s StasCan report showing an increase of 35,400 jobs, and a decrease in the jobless rate to 6.6 per cent, from 6.7 per cent.
But that is just about the sunniest number there is in this jobs report. Dig a little beneath the surface, and what you find is a struggling job market.
First and most importantly, all of the net increase in jobs was accounted for by an increase in “self-employed” individuals, of 41,000.
Many economists are suspicious of this category, because “self-employed” does not equal “making money.” It could be that more than 40,000 Canadians found their entrepreneurial spirit last month and launched their own startups, but it’s just as likely many are putting a brave face on their unemployment.
The number of salaried jobs actually fell by 5,400 from a month earlier, and the number of full-time jobs of any kind fell by 11,800. That was offset by an increase of part-time jobs of 47,000.
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