Ontario Loses 34,000 Jobs in November 2014, Over A Year, Population Growth Outpaces Employment Growth

I already blogged about Canada's overall unemployment today however I hadn't checked the Ontario November numbers in depth, only knowing they had declined. However after looking at the numbers at Statscan, Ontario declined by a relatively large 34,000 jobs, especially compared to the fact Canada itself lost only 10,700 jobs.

Compared with a year ago the province gained 53,000 jobs, an 0.8 % increase. That sounds good, but the labour force population increased by 127,100 over the year, a 1.1% increase so the percentage of employed Ontarians actually decreased. That obviously has negative implications for the Ontario budget, as taxes are generally going to paid by employees while expenditures will be based on the entire population.

The fact that Ontario's labour force population has increased at a 1.1% rate over the past year is interesting in and of it self, because it had been lower recently. Ontario's GDP growth in large part has been a story of population growth rather than GDP growth per capita (i.e. productivity growth).

Mainstream Media Wakes Up to Record Ontario Hydro Global Adjustment Fees

I made a blog post a little while ago (December 4th), about how the electricity surcharge, i.e. the global adjustment that gets added to Ontario electricity bills to cover Green Energy initiatives reached a record high in November.

Here's an article from the Toronto Star (December 13th) where they too mention the record high for November. So they're catching up to Surly Hamiltonian. Some good info:

"It’s a lot of money. In November, the total global adjustment payment came to $847 million. Of that, $192 million went to OPG, and the remainder to private power companies."

$847 million in one month? That's a colossal amount of money for Ontario considering the population is just shy of 13 million. That's a lot of money to be taking from the residents of Ontario and can't be helping consumption and further, for poor people is especially damaging.

How high will the global adjustment fee be in 2014? More wind is coming online and the big problem is when the wind blows strongly overnight when demand is low. That power has to be paid for and has been dumped to the Americans in the past for negative rates (i.e. the province pays the Americans to take our excess power). If overall Ontario power demand stays low, the global adjustment could go higher.

Ontario Electricity Global Adjustment for November 2013: Really High

The second estimate for the global adjustment for Ontario's electricity bills for November is out and it isn't good. The second estimate is usually quite close to the final value and for November it was 8.49 cents per kilowatt hour. That's significantly more than the 5.75 cents for the previous November and interestingly a big increase from October's final number of 6.34 cents. More wind power that gets a much higher than market price has come on stream in 2013 and Ontario has to buy it all, driving up the global adjustment.

If the final November number is anywhere close to the second estimate (and it usually is), the 8.49 cents is highest for any month in 2012 and 2013 (and maybe ever). The previous high was June 2013 at 7.04 cents.

Increasing from October is a little strange, as a high number usually comes from high output from solar and wind and low demand. November is usually significantly colder than October so there is usually more demand for electrical heat. However this year November wasn't that cold, but there were some windy days, including some that were uncharacteristically warm. In every month since April, this global adjustment number has been higher in 2013 than 2012. The first estimate for December is 7.61 cents which is considerably higher than the 4.63 cents in 2012. When the final estimates are in for 2013 I'll calculate the average for the year. For reference the average monthly rate for 2012 was 4.97 cents per KWh