Mixed feelings over recent job growth in Canada

Sonya Khanna

Business Editor

Despite a continuing pessimistic attitude about world markets and the impact of the European debt crisis on the global financial system, encouraging employment figures for September have prompted a rejuvenated attitude.

Canada pumped out 61,000 net new full-time jobs in September, nudging the unemployment rate down to an optimistic 7.1 per cent. The wave of growth in public sector employment as well as an increase in self-employment has attributed to the recent unemployment figures. According to a recently published report of Canada’s national Labour Force Survey, nearly two-thirds of all full-time employment was due to growth in self-employment.

According to Statistics Canada, employers in Canada have churned 294,000 jobs in the first nine months of the year, citing the encouraging figures to a surge in full-time employment.

Although recent job growth in Canada may indicate a positive economic outlook for the future, fluctuating data portrays a dismal subtext amidst weakening confidence and growing caution in many companies.

Despite the hopeful outlook for Canadian unemployment, CAW President Ken Lewenza noted that the quality of jobs are imperative to health of an economy and outweigh the quantity of jobs in significance.

Private sector unemployment plummeted for the second-consecutive month while labour market gains were prevalent in the services sector.

“If I could I’d put every new job created through a quality assurance test to make sure it’s a decent job – with good wages, benefits and that provides some stability – not simply a last-choice survival job,” said Lewenza.

Work positions associated with the services sector such as retail and hospitality tend to include lower wage positions and often precarious working conditions.

Lewenza has conveyed the importance of implementing initiatives aimed at ensuring all Canadians are offered access to quality jobs in the 21st century, stating the need for the Harper government to pull back from austerity measures and view the public services as an important jobs creator.

The World Day for Decent Work is an initiative that aims to provide trade unions in the world with a venue to stand up for decent work, expressing the need for decent work to be a key government concern to stimulate economic growth and restructure the global economy to “put people first.”

The World Day for Decent Works places importance on addressing “typically precarious employment”, including non-permanent, temporary and contingent forms of work.

Of the 61,000 jobs created in September, over half were in the public sector, while finance, insurance, real-estate and leasing sector employment tumbled, shedding 35,000 jobs in the previous month.

The youth unemployment rate remained steady at 14 per cent.

Regardless of Canada’s performance in the labour market, Canadian employment figures overshadow the United States, where the jobless rate is at a bleak 9.1 per cent.

Economists have predicted a positive outlook for the jobs market, although a waning pace of hiring is expected for the rest of the year.