Canada's and Ontario's Job June 2014 Numbers Are Out

I've been looking forward to the June 2014 jobs numbers from Statistics Canada. I expected mediocrity while the prognosticators weren't and with 9,400 jobs lost across the country, I think I was closer. Ontario lost a massive 34,000 jobs which surprised me only in just how many jobs were lost.

Surly Hamiltonian has been banging the drum that Ontario's economy isn't going to grow by 2.1% as predicted in the 2014 Ontario budget (it was originally a prediction of 2.3% in the 2013 budget). These weak June numbers would appear to show that Ontario's performance will be weak in the second quarter of 2014, similar to the first quarter (whose number we don't know officially until August, but we can guess partially due to the -2.9% performance in the US in the first quarter).

I'm going to do another post looking deeper into the jobs numbers as looking over a bigger range than six months is gives a clearer view of how Ontario has been performing and the impact it will have on the budget and government revenues.

Here's a quote from the Globe and Mail's article on the job numbers which I think is apt:

Ontario’s hard-hit manufacturing sector continues to bear the brunt of the disappearing jobs. “The Ontario economy and especially manufacturing are divorced from the recoveries taking place in various parts of North America,” said Andrew Violi, president of Toronto-based safety shoe manufacturer Mellow Walk Footwear.