Garth on Jobs

But, this just states the obvious. The latest job numbers are terrible (3,000 new positions in the entire country, and a whack of those are ‘self-employment’).

Nov 5, 2010

Note that he omitted the gain of 47,000 full-time jobs offset by a loss of 44,000 part-time ones. Also he references that self employment makes up these new positions contrary to the report indicating 24,000 fewer self-employed positions.

While in this report Garth focuses on the headline number, in other cases he has selected different components which implying a deteriorating job market. However over this time period all of these components have been trending positive.

And today's jobs report shows the economy's still a dangerous thing, especially in Ontario. But, whadda I know?

July 9 , 2009

Hard to see how all this can happen when in a single month 53,000 people stopped looking for jobs, 45,000 more lost their jobs, and 35,000 made up jobs. Yet even with the official job loss number of just 45,000, we were in economic free fall compared to the States.

Aug 9, 2009

Last month Canadian employers terminated 139,000 full-time jobs, and created 130,000 part-time positions. So, those gains everybody was crowing about some weeks ago are pretty much gone, at least for now. And losing 139,000 steady jobs is a big deal – equivalent to the US shedding 1.3 million in a month, which would be a national disaster. Thank goodness some temporary or reduced-hours work was created.

Aug 8, 2010


A more serious analysis would consider all the different factors - not only the ones that portray a negative environment. Another thing to be cautious of in this report is monthly spikes that do not reflect underlying trends.


There has been a legitimate job recovery in Canada since July 2009, although it has not been robust enough to bring the unemployment rate to pre-recession levels. Total employment has fully recovered and wages have increased. The problem is this has been largely offset by a growing labour force.