So the jobs numbers for September came out from Statscan. For all of Canada, employment went up a mediocre 12,100 jobs. Unfortunately for Ontario, employment went down by a relatively massive 33,800 jobs (oddly Alberta gained 12,300 jobs in September). That follows a smaller loss of 3,900 jobs in August. July's employment numbers were unchanged. So by any measure, that's a pretty stagnant three month period for jobs in Ontario.
One wonders how that will end up showing up in the third quarter GDP numbers. By comparison, for the January, February and March period, jobs went up by 17,100 even though the GDP number was negative for the first quarter. That suggests to me that the third quarter GDP number for Ontario could also be negative (note that the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model is predicting only 1% GDP growth in the third quarter for the US, Ontario's primary export market).
Obviously the monthly and three months numbers, aren't good for Ontario, what about the entire year's? Since the start of the year, Ontario's jobs numbers are up 23,000, which isn't terrible, but certainly not particularly good either. However, Canada's number is 126,600 since the start of the year, so Ontario's portion is way below its share of Canada's population.
There was also some bad news in terms of the composition of the jobs in Ontario in September. Full-time jobs were down by 67,700 compared to an increase of 34,000 part-time jobs. I'm not sure if there's a statistical aberration with the full-time versus part-time numbers or what. Over the full year, the full-time number is much better, a gain of 67,800 jobs versus a loss of 44,800 part-time jobs.
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