March 2015 Canada Jobs Numbers Out, 28,700 Gained

Statscan just released the March 2015 jobs numbers with 28,700 new jobs. Earlier I predicted 20,000 new jobs so I wasn't off by much. That's up from the 1000 job loss for the country in February and arguably better than the 126,000 jobs the US gained in March.

According to the Statscan summary here, Saskatchewan and Manitoba gained jobs while the other provinces stayed roughly the same. Which seems a little strange, as one would expect some problems for Alberta and Saskatchewan has oil influence as well.

The summary also notes:

"In March, employment was also little changed in both Quebec and Ontario. In Quebec, year-over-year growth was 0.8%, with all of the gains in the first two months of 2015. In Ontario, employment edged up 0.5% compared with 12 months earlier."

Considering the Ontario population is growing around 1% a year, 0.5% isn't particularly impressive. Quebec's number is just weird as I'm not sure what's special about January and February this year for that province.

I'll have a closer look at the Ontario numbers in the next couple of days.

March 2015 Employment Numbers for Canada Come Out Today at 8:30

After a disappointing 126,000 jobs created in March were announced last Friday in the US, Statscan will release the Canadian numbers today. The February Canadian number was poor as 1000 jobs were lost. A mediocre March number would confirm that the first quarter was probably poor for GDP in Canada.

The Ontario number should be interesting too. Are job losses or lack of job creation limited to Alberta and Saskatchewan? Or will Ontario be affected too?

I'm predicting 20,000 jobs created overall. February was a brutal month weather wise for a lot of the country and some hires probably got pushed back until March.

Nanos Poll Has Hudak and Wynne Close, Horwath in Third

Nanos has a new poll out, showing that the Ontario Liberals have 36%, the PCs at 33% and the NDP at 25%. Nanos' previous poll in January had the Liberals at 36%, the PCs at 28% and the NDP at 27%.

I'm going to try and keep track of all Ontario polls from now on. I've noticed that in Ontario Nanos seems to have the Liberals higher than other pollsters. For instance Forum's last poll I believe had them well back of the Tories. Seems strange, but I'll be keeping track of Ontario polls from now on.

I'm skeptical that the Liberals would poll currently higher than the Tories if an election were held today, but one should never underestimate the propensity of the Ontario voter to vote Liberal provincially.

Ontario Electricity: February 2014 Final Global Adjustment, March Initial Estimate

Ontario has continued its string of low global adjustment charges for electricity this winter. February's final global adjustment came in at a rather low of 1.33 cents per kilowatt hour. That was lower than the initial estimate of 2.23 cents, but slightly higher than January's 1.26 cents per kilowatt hour. That's a considerable decrease from last year's 4.81 cents.

Why so low? Probably because as in January it was really cold and people used more electricity, especially at night for supplemental heating (when the wind is blowing and wind turbine production is high). That combined with seasonally low production from expensive wind and solar producers produces a low global adjustment. It is a little strange that the February rate is so low compared to last year, however it has been significantly colder.

March's estimate is again really low in historical terms at 1.1 cents, especially compared to last year's 4.93 cents. Again March has been a lot colder than last year, so energy consumption should be up. April should be interesting as hopefully it will be considerably warmer with lower consumption and more production from solar should lead to a considerable increase in the global adjustment. Last April's was 5.86 cents.